L'ange et le Monstre II
by KuraiShinzo
Summary: The sequel to L'ange et le Monstre: Gabriel and Elizabeth are finally getting their happily ever after wedding....after a fashion. Rated 'M' for possible gore and violence.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Well here's the next part of Gabe and Liz's story…I wonder how it'll turn out.

(Cue random dramatic music)

* * *

**October 23****rd**

**1874**

Gabriel yawned and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. On his pillow, Rose opened one yellow eye to give him an annoyed look and covered her face with a paw.

He cracked his neck to one side, then the other; the odd dream he had woken from was already slipping away, like most of his dreams did, and already seemed less vivid. It still stuck in his mind, though: for the first time in now fourteen years, he had dreamt of his family. They had been standing outside on his balcony and staring in at him disapprovingly, while he stood frozen in front of them. Odd, because none of them seemed to have aged a day since that day in 1859. And they had been talking…what had his father said? Or maybe it was his mother…

"It was Michelle," he said suddenly to himself. _She said simply because I was a monster, I wasn't free of my name. What did she mean by that?_

_Drop it--it was only a dream, you idiot. Focus on _reality,_ for once…now, what was I supposed to do today?_

Ella appeared out of thin air, nearly giving him a heart attack. "Bon_jour_!" She shouted.

Gabriel grabbed the shirt slung over the foot of the bed (he slept in his pants) and slipped it on, sighing. "Ellansey, didn't we have a discussion just the other day about that? _Please_ use the door like a normal person."

She tilted her head at him, her brown eyes opened wide. "But my way _is_ normal! By fey terms, anyway."

He shook his head. "Very well—can't you at least warn me first?"

"I guess."

Gabriel waited politely for her to say something. After a while, he asked "Did you have something to tell me, or…?"

Ella thought it over for a minute (a long minute—her memory tended to take an occasion leave), then grinned brightly and snapped her fingers. "Well, I was supposed to tell you that it was breakfast four hours ago, but then there was this really pretty butterfly, and I got distracted. And then 'Ray--" her nickname for Fraya-"—came out in the gardens to tell me it was lunch-time, and that since Liz's dad would be here any second, for me to come and wake you up."

Gabriel was already on his feet before she finished. "Elizabeth's father—I forgot all about that!" He finished buttoning up his shirt and shoved his feet into his boots. "He's not here already, is he?"

"Actually, he just walked in five minutes ago—he should be in the dining room with--"

Gabriel grabbed his gloves and cloak and raced out the door.

"Elizabeth," she finished. Ella caught sight of the sleeping cat on Gabriel's pillow and brightened. "_Bonjour, Rose_!"

Rose glared, hissed, and crawled under the bed.

* * *

"You haven't told me much about Gabriel." Elizabeth's father, Henri Merle, sipped at a glass of water while they waited for Gabriel to show up.

Elizabeth twirled her engagement ring around on her finger. She was glad enough to introduce Gabriel, but a part of her was starting to wish they had written to Allie and Kal for another on of those illusion-pendants. _God, I hope he doesn't over-react. Gabriel's not that bad, not really. But Father's not as young as he used to be...oh dear God in Heaven, what if he has a _heart attack? "Well, he'll be here any minute now," she said as cheerfully as she could. _He'd better be! I don't know if I can take much more of this pent-up nervousness!_ She poured herself more water, grateful she had left the coffee-pot alone; the last thing she needed at this moment was caffeine. She heard the doors at the end of the dining room opened. "Speak of the devil, there he is." She turned around and got a strong, sudden sense of déjà-vu: he wore a black hooded cloak, black leather gloves, black pants, and a black shirt buttoned up all the way, just as he had on their first meeting. It was impossible to make out any facial features, even with the bright sunlight coming in from the window.

"Good afternoon—forgive me for being up so late." He sat down next to Elizabeth: for his credit, he acted as if he dressed in that manner every day and therefore nothing out of the usual.

Elizabeth fought down a nervous giggle. "Um, father, this is my fiancé, Gabriel Noirmort—Gabriel, this is my father, Henri Merle." She noted that her father was keeping his features perfectly neutral, even though Gabriel's height—he was eight feet tall—must have had an impact on him, even without having seen his face. Or his tail, or horns, or any of his other unusual features.

"It's my pleasure to meet you, M. Merle." Gabriel held out his hand—with his long arms, he didn't even have to rise out of his seat. "Ang—Elizabeth has spoken of you often," he added quickly: a small lie, of course, but it helped.

Henri's hand, while large compared to a normal person, was nearly completely covered by Gabriel's. "All good things, I hope," he joked.

Gabriel laughed politely and filled a mug with strong, black coffee. "Please, eat; I myself am not hungry at the moment."

"_The moment" being the last fourteen years, give or take, _Elizabeth thought, digging into her own breakfast to hide her smile. She ate enough to feed the both of them, as Gabriel often liked to joke.

"Quite a nice home you have," Henri said, trying to find a subject—one, luck-willing, where Gabriel's odd choice of clothes would not come up in.

"Thank you; I hope you didn't have any trouble finding your way around it." His voice was perfectly casual, and he seemed relaxed enough; his fingers, tightened around the handle of his cup, gave away he was as nervous as Elizabeth—probably more. Much more. He had never been a people-person to begin with, and his peculiar appearance didn't add to that in a positive way. But, as he told Elizabeth once, old habits died hard, and his aristocratic upbringing, however brief, hid his nerves fairly well. It also helped that his face was completely hidden.

"I met him at the door," Elizabeth said, glad to finally be able to say something.

Henri nodded. "I was meaning to ask about that unusual artwork I saw on the floor—it seemed as if the vines continue through the castle."

"They do," Elizabeth answered. "As far as I know." She glanced Gabriel, who, beneath the hood, nodded in confirmation.

"With the exception of the basement, and a few of the top floors, yes—there was only so much paint. As for the basement," he added lightly, "there was really no use in decorating that dingy cellar."

Henri grinned and poked at some of the food on his plate. "The artist ran out of paint and didn't bother to purchase more? That's rather cheap of him, wasn't it?" Hs expression turned to that of almost comical puzzlement when Gabriel laughed, choking on his coffee. Elizabeth joined him for a moment before gaining control of herself. She looked apologetically at her father.

"Sorry about that—you see--"

"_I_ was the artist," Gabriel finished, undoubtedly grinning under his hood. "It's not all that funny, I suppose, but under the circumstances…" He chuckled and set his cup down. "I found myself…unable to purchase the necessary materials, but it _was _rather cheap of me, wasn't it?"

Elizabeth, more relaxed now Gabriel was, shrugged helplessly at Henri. "It's a bit of a complicated joke," she offered as an explanation. _And really not funny, when you think about it, him being secluded alone in the castle for years and years, but still…_

The rest of lunch went considerably well. The conversation went from horses and farming (a subject Gabriel got lost quickly enough in) to politics (that ended quickly enough, for Elizabeth had no interest whatsoever, and Gabriel was well over a decade behind on that), to their summer trip to Paris (of which all the demons and Gabriel's brief circus-carrier were omitted), and, finally, to the wedding, which would take place on the second of November.

"We've decided to have it here," Elizabeth said. "In the courtyard, if the weather is fair. All it needs is some tidying up, and it would be perfect." _And it gets rid of that tiny matter of drawing attention. _The last thing the two wanted was the priest of the church chasing after Gabriel with a cross upheld in one hand and flinging holy water at him with the other; the comical mental image was one thing…

"You've chosen your wedding dress then?"

"Hm? Oh, no." She frowned and looked up at her father. "I haven't gotten around to it quite yet."

"Good." At his daughter's puzzlement, he grinned. "I still have your mother's dress at home; I thought, perhaps, you may want to--"

"That'd be great!" She looked at Gabriel. "Gabriel?"

He was turned around in his chair, his head turned in the direction of the door. "Did you hear something?"

"Um, no. Is something wrong?"

He shook his head. "I thought I heard Rose for a minute…it was probably my imagination."

"Rose?" Henri asked. "Who's she?"

"My cat."

"Ah."

He turned back around in his chair. "You were saying?"

It took her a second to remember. "Oh, that; Father said that I could use my mother's wedding dress."

"That would be--" "Fine", he would have finished, but Ella and Fraya decided to turn up just then. Out of thin air.

Right in front of Henri, who nearly fell out of his chair in shock. "Wha--!"

The two fey took little notice of him. "We think there's something in the dungeons," Fraya told Gabriel, before he could have a chance to object to their appearance.

"A _demon_!" Ella added, her eyes wide. She tugged on his arm. "It's making scary noises! And we think it got Rose!"

Elizabeth had crossed the table and was helping her father up and trying to calm him down.

"They—who—how did they--" He ogled the fey; under his farmer's tan, he'd gone more that a little pale. She helped him sit down in his chair and glanced up at Gabriel.

"Wait for me." He nodded and walked off to the door, cape billowing after him. She turned her attention back to Henri. "Father." His eyes were focused enough when they met hers—that was something, at least. He wouldn't faint. "They're friends—they won't hurt you. I'm going with Gabriel for a moment. Are you going to be alright with them?"

He nodded. "Yes….but…they just came out of nowhere! What _are_ they?" Henri's eyes widened enough to show the whites all around when Fraya, after giving Ella a "behave yourself!" sort of look, came around to his side of the table.

"We'll take care of him, Mlle. Elizabeth—you make sure to call if you manage to get yourself into trouble." She smiled dryly. "Yet again."

"Merci." She patted her father sympathetically on the shoulder and then ran to meet Gabriel.

* * *

It was the smell that drew her down into the basement. Normally, at this time of the afternoon, she would be napping in a warm spot of autumn sunlight. And she would have been, at that moment, if it weren't for the smell of that reeking, putrid corpse. It reached her sensitive nose as she was laying on his pillow; the cursed one's pillow, the shy, tall one—she had little use for names humans and the like chose to give each other. She herself recognized friends and enemies by her preternatural sense of smell, and by sight. The cursed one, her friend, and his mate—for that was the closest term in her vocabulary to describe them—were in another wing of the castle entirely, and she knew that neither they or the two fey-girls could smell it.

So she went off by herself.

She followed she scent of the rotting body through most of the North Wing of the castle, tail held high in the nature of a cat going about her own business. The scent led her to a plain, unlovely door, which posed a bit of a problem, as the doorknob was high above her head. It took her half a dozen tries before she could jump and get a good grip around the doorknob. Then she opened it, using her weight to turn it—a thing either of the two humans or fey would have stared at in shock.

Yes, the human-corpse was there; at the bottom of dozens of damp, stone stairs, it was there. It and something else—it too smelled dead, but dry as well: the almost-pleasant, cinnamony smell of a dead body, set to dry out in the hot sun with next to no rain. This thing was what she had to be wary of—this thing was both dead and not-dead. Beneath that smell of sweet cinnamon, there was sweat and blood. Much blood, yes—this not-dead thing was gorged on the blood from the dead-human corpse, had dined on it like a mosquito. She growled to herself and went about the tedious business about going down the many stairs, leaping every five or so. The smell of rot grew stronger in her nose the further she went, along with new smells: rusty metal, mold, spongy wood, wet stone, and yet more decay. Whatever the place was, it was a dead, fell place, not used by anyone for many a year.

She had reached the bottom of the stairs; slinking along the ground, she crept under a long table of molding wood and examined the room.

It was very big, twice the size of the cursed one's room at least. The floors and walls and ceiling were all made of the same grey stone. Rusty objects that she didn't recognize hung from hooks on the wall and were strewn about tables much like the one she was under; on them, nearly blending in with the flakes of rust, were old bloodstains. Like bloodstains were on the walls of the half a dozen cells, and on the thick iron bars: no bodies on the moldy straw in the cells, though: having rotted long ago, all that remained were bits of bones. Rats had disposed of the rest, most likely.

In the center of the room was the rotting body whose scent she had followed: its gender was impossible to tell, for more reasons than decay. The body was horribly mangled and torn, its face a mask of gristle and bone its mother would have definitely not recognized.

The not-dead thing ripped off the last few fingers from the corpse and chewed them in the same manner a cow chews its cud, reveling rows of fangs, all of them crooked, all a yellowish grey…all razor sharp. It stared off at a spot on the ceiling with its red, beady eyes as it chewed, the paled doughy flesh of its face working as it chewed. It was easily the most grotesque thing she had ever had the misfortune to lay her eyes on, with its dirty yellow claws protruding from its stubby fingers, which attached to fat, small hands and they to fat but surprisingly long arms. As for its neck, she could see none: the round head of the creature seemed to sit on the sloping, rounded shoulders, like a toad's. A greasy mane of black hair fell over its shoulder and down onto the front of its grey, blood-stained shirt; there were spiders crawling in the hair. Its round torso took up most of its body; the legs, like the arms, were long but fat. Old leather boots were falling apart on its feet.

As she watched it in a kind of fascinated revulsion, its eyes turned to her. The lumpy, round nose sniffed once, and then, before she could so much as twitch a whisker, it rolled onto its knees and snatched her from underneath the table, bringing her up to its face. The scraggy eyebrows (where the spiders had also taken up residence) rose in an expression of surprise.

"Oho!" It exclaimed in a nasally voice. "A little kitty, eeeh?" Its yellowish tongue wormed out to lick its crimson lips. "Haven't had a kitty in _years_!" It laughed, and she hung limply in his hand, frozen in fear.

The not-dead thing bared its fangs in something too grotesque to be a grin, and then bit off her left foreleg. That broke her shock, and she yowled loud enough to her own ears.

She was still screaming when the cursed one and his blonde-haired mate ran down the stairs.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Finally finished chapter 2…so far, my Muse hasn't decided to take an impromptu vacation, so yay for me.

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever  
they go."  
-- Oscar Wilde

* * *

"Which way?" 

Gabriel grabbed her hand and led her, speeding up. "It—the staircase—is in the North Wing, if my memory serves me correctly." He turned a corner. "Of course, I haven't gone near that particular section for longer than I can remember—for all I know, my parents might have sealed it off, before they, er, left." To himself, he thought: _Most likely not; they were much too fond of their little playroom to go through all the trouble of changing it. Besides, who would tell? Their little whipped son?_

Elizabeth had to break into a light jog in order to keep up with him. "D'you really think something's down there? And Rose?"

"I hope not." He glanced over his shoulder to roll his eyes in an exaggerated annoyance. "Most people, they have rodents. Us? We have demons." He paused at a corner to glance around. _Was it to the right, or to the left?_ While he struggled to remember, he caught a whiff of something. Not pleasant, either…something _rotten._ "Do you smell something, ange?"

She shook her head. "No." Pause. "Do you know where to go?"

Instead of answering, he turned right. Yes, he was sure it was right, now, because…

_I had a book in my right hand—a child's book, and when I went down this corridor, I tripped over a dent or something in the carpet, and the book hit the wall. I picked it back up with my left, and then went on. Astonishing what I remember, almost over twenty years later._

He guided Elizabeth around that same dent without being fully aware of it. "Not far now—if I'm not mistaken, it should be..." He trailed off and stopped at the door. It was open, revealing a staircase cut in stone.

Something was screaming, and it wasn't a human something.

He glanced at Elizabeth, who had gone a little pale. "Ange, you best stay here."

"I'm coming," she said decisively, and started down the stairs, skipping every second. Gabriel had to hunch over quite a bit as he followed: as a child, the ceiling had seemed tall as every other, but then, he had grown a good deal since the age of six. He pushed back the hood; there was no need for it now, not in the lowest levels of the castle.

"Urgh, what is that _stench_?" She pulled out a handkerchief and covered her nose with it. "It smells horrible!"

Gabriel, whose sense of smell was much more acute than hers, felt his eyes water. "Quite." The screaming sound continued, growing louder as they got closer. _Rose_, he thought. _Oh dear God, what's happening to her?_ He easily passed Elizabeth and reached the bottom of the stairs, entering a room he had hoped to never see again.

The dungeon had fallen into decay in its abandonment, but Gabriel hardly noticed, as his attention was not on the dank room. His cat, a gift from Elizabeth, was in the hands of a repulsive demon…and one of her forelegs hung out of its mouth. The nightmarish sight froze him for a moment, and the demon met his eyes.

"What do we have herrrre?" He asked in a high-pitched voice. The leg, considerably mangled, fell out of his mouth and into his lap. Rose writhed in his hand, scratching and biting in vain. "A very odd sort of freak." Coming from his mouth, it should have been comical. "Took over the castle after scaring away the family, eh? I should thank you for these _deliciousss_ meals." There was a corpse, long dead, next to him on the floor that was giving off the rotting smell and the demon gestured to it with Rose, then pointed to Rose herself. "Yesss, Cornelius the vampire says '_merci beaucoup'_—that's me, nyur, nyur, nyur." The odd sounds he made may have been something akin to laughter.

Elizabeth was the first to move. She grabbed a metal brand (bearing on the end the insignia of the Noirmorts) and made to attack the vampire, holding it as she would a sword. The ugly thing, who called himself Cornelius, snatched the brand as it fell, and used it to yank her off her feet. His spare hand was around her neck before she landed. "A woman too? You are just to kind, Monsieur! Her blood will be as sweet as--" Just as sweet as what, he never had a chance to say. The next instant, He found himself slammed up against the bars of an old cell, head level with the ceiling.

"Drop them," Gabriel ordered calmly, almost nonchalantly. He tightened his hands around the vampire's almost non-existent neck, enough that his claws nicked the skin. "Or your head will go rolling across the floor."

Instead of loosening, Cornelius tightened his grip on the two: a few of the cat's ribs cracked audibly, and Elizabeth's face began to turn a deep crimson. "Don't be so hostile, now!" He, being undead, wasn't terribly bothered of his limited air-supply. "You brought me nice treats, and now you want them _back_? That's not very--"

"Shut your mouth and drop them, or I will make your death agonizing instead of quick." Elizabeth as well as Rose had raked deep wounds into the wrists of the vampire: these healed over without a sign of a scar a few seconds after being inflicted. Elizabeth looked as if she were about to pass out; Rose, thankfully, already had. "_Now_."

He spat in his face. "No—they're mine, now, and I'll do with them whatever I plea--" Gabriel buried his fangs into the vampire's forearm. He screamed and dropped Elizabeth. She had passed out, but was breathing.

Blood gushed out from the wound onto both Gabriel and Cornelius before it healed with the astonishing speed of a vampire. Without a pause, Gabriel snapped the other wrist with his free hand and managed to catch his poor cat before it fell.

Cornelius fought to get free, writhing like the world's biggest, fattest worm._ "Don't kill me!_"

Gabriel loosened his hand slightly; he was not a murderer. He would be now if he killed the creature while it was defenseless, regardless that it probably deserved death more than mercy. Then it suddenly felt as if he were outside his body, looking at his own half-feral features, drawn together in rage._ Not free of your name, petit frere,_ a voice hissed, and he watched himself rip the vampire's head from his neck.

* * *

Elizabeth gained consciousness about seven minutes later, opening her eyes to a vaguely familiar room. The furnishings were either a deep crimson, gold, or simply black—black was the most common. The floor was littered with crumpled sheets of hand-written music scores, old pens, empty ink wells, and a few empty wine bottles. Gabriel sat in a chair next to his bed, Rose in his lap.

She felt her bruised throat carefully. "Is--?"

"He's dead," Gabriel said simply, stroking the unconscious cat. For a moment, she thought it was dead, but she could see Rose's side moving up and down. The stump where her leg once was was bandaged up. "Your father is in the company of the fey—I just explained what happened. To Ellansey and Fraya, not your father."

Elizabeth sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She must have bumped her head sometime, or the goose-egg on the back of it spontaneously appeared. "How's Rose?"

"Dying from loss of blood," he replied, just as simply as he had before. His voice was one of a person just stating the facts. His eyes were a different story completely.

She couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound stupid, so she settled with putting a hand on his forearm…then pulled it back when it came in contact with something sticky. She winced at the sight of the blood on her hand and wiped it on her handkerchief, pulling it out of a pocket in her skirt. "Are you hurt?"

He shook his head. "His blood, not mine," he explained shortly, and continued to pet his dying cat. "And hers."

Elizabeth found herself having to swallow a lump in her throat; she had gotten as attached to the small tabby as Gabriel had. She stroked Rose's head with fingers that felt asleep, for they had that annoying pins-and-needles feeling in them. She switched hands and flexed that hand, trying to get the feeling out. The pins-and-needles were even stronger in her right hand, almost painful. She switched hands again, trying to get rid of the feeling, and succeeded only with cracking her knuckles. Odd, because it didn't really feel like she did and it sounded more like they _snapped_ instead of cracked.

Rose opened her golden eyes and meowed at Gabriel. Then she proceeded to try and bite off the bandage on her stump. When he tried to stop her, she nipped his hand curtly and yanked them off.

"How….?" Gabriel touched the end of the stump. "How is that possible?"

Elizabeth understood his confusion: where the jagged bone and gristle had been now looked as if it had been healed for many a year, the flesh unmarked by fur. In her shock at the healed wound, she didn't notice that the pins-and-needles suddenly left. "This is crazy, but…do you think _she_ might have healed herself?"

Gabriel blinked and thought it over. "Well…" he said slowly, a smile forming on his lips, "I suppose that if a creature like me can exist in a castle where the servants are two fey, engaged to an angel of a woman, surrounded by roses that never die…"

"With a vampire in the basement instead of rats," she added, catching his train of thought.

"…anything could be possible," he finished, and lifted the cat up to his face. "Mademoiselle Rose? Have you any idea as to how that just happened?"

"Mrow."

"Liz?" Ella appeared behind Gabriel, who twisted around in his chair to glare at her. "Uh-oh…I didn't give you a heart-attack, did I?"

"Just barely; please, continue."

Ella shrugged helplessly and addressed Elizabeth. "Your dad is getting nervous—'Ray said to come and get you before he started wandering around the castle on his own. And for me to stop pestering him. Is this really that annoying?" she asked, disappearing for a moment then re-appearing behind her.

Elizabeth jumped and got off the bed. "Only the hundredth time or so, Ella."

"Really?" The fey began ticking off her fingers. "That means I can do that…87 more times until I'm annoying! I'll need some more sugar if I'm to do all that!" With that, she disappeared.

"We'd best follow," Gabriel said, setting Rose down on his pillow. "You rest, Mademoiselle."

The cat batted and ear and began to groom herself, loosing interest in the two.

"Such perfect, normal lives we lead," Gabriel said dryly. He quickly stripped off his bloody shirt and pulled on a new one—virtually identical to the last--from his wardrobe, buttoned it, and offered his arm to Elizabeth.

They left the room, and his cloak lay forgotten on the back of the chair.

* * *

Henri sat back in his chair, sipping at a glass of wine and trying to get over his shock. The attempt was, so far, largely unsuccessful, but he suspected if he drank enough wine, it wouldn't matter either way.

Did he really expect himself to be able to get over that with just a snap of the fingers? Two _girls—_if they were that—came out of _nowhere!_ With green hair and pointed ears, for sweet Christ's sake! On top of that, his daughter (who had called them _friends!_) and her eccentric fiancé had run off, leaving him with the…whatever _they_ were. The one who wore her hair in a messy bun had talked to him in a stern, get-a-hold-of-yourself voice, while the one that wore her hair down around her shoulders began disappearing and re-appearing in circles around him, saying "See, it's not that bad!" Finally, the former had ordered the latter away.

Henri had gotten up and headed for the doors, fully intending to follow after Elizabeth and Gabriel, only to be stopped by the remaining girl-thing. She shut the doors and stood in front of them, arms crossed over her chest. "_You_ stay here and wait for Elizabeth and Gabriel to return."

"I—I can leave whenever I wish to!" Henri stuttered. "I'm no prisoner here!"

"You're right—you're a guest in their home, and you _can_ leave." She raised an eyebrow. "But simply because you_ can_…"

"…doesn't mean I _will_," Henri finished with a heavy sigh.

She smiled and clapped him on the shoulder, not seeming to be offended when he jerked away from the contact. "Smart man—no puzzle where Lady Elizabeth gets her wits from."

He sighed again and brought a hand to his head, perhaps checking if he were running a strong fever, and that this were really all a hallucination. "I need a drink."

She waved her hand behind him, liking rather amused. "There's plenty on the table—and here I was, being fooled into thinking you were clever." The joke was missed by Henri, who turned and went back to the table, ignoring the coffee, tea, water, and juice, instead selecting the bottle of red wine that was on the end of the table. After the first sip, he found it to be quite good—better, actually. Very likely the best he'd ever had, unless his memory betrayed him, as it would do more and more as he grew older.

So that was how he was when he heard the first approaching footsteps. He glanced up form the tablecloth (which was not intriguing in the slightest, but was better to stare at than the strange, inhuman girl) just as the aforementioned girl opened the doors.

What he saw was a far greater shock than the green haired, pointy-eared girls, and made him wish for something stronger than the wine in front of him.

Arm in am with his daughter was some…_creature—_a beast of the like he had never seen. It walked upright like a man—had the_ body_ of a man, as a matter of fact. His body was covered with black fur that seemed to glow with blue tints in the sunlight that filled the room. He had wavy black hair that fell to the shoulders of his plain black shirt (it was buttoned crookedly, his—Henri's—mind registered almost giddily in its shock), and a small set of curved ram's horns stuck out of the hair, curling around his ears. The face of the creature could have been that of a man's, with its angular jaw and cheekbones, if not for the cat-like nose in the place of a normal one. His eyes were red-on-black, and his thin lips were black like a dog's.

Henri took all this in a moment—the next, the human/beast creature's face registered confusing, then realization, and ducked behind one of the doors, leaving Elizabeth with a similar confused expression on her face. Then—

"Oh." That was all she said: just that one "Oh", in a voice Henri recognized well from her childhood. When she had forgotten something significant—say, leaving an oil-lamp hanging in the barn—she had uttered the same kind of "oh". "Oh. Uh, Father--"

"What…what _is_ that thing?" Henri exclaimed, feeling detached from his body.

Elizabeth winced visibly. "He's not a _'thing'_, Father. He…here, love, we'd better get this over with now." She grabbed his hand ad pulled him out from his hiding spot. The creature was as interested in its boots as Henri had been with the tablecloth, he noticed. The girl patted her sympathetically on the shoulder and said something that sounded like "Good luck" before leaving.

"Then…?" He asked, not adding "what is it/he".

The creature answered. "I _used_ to be human," he said in a tone that said it was not the first time explaining this. "Unfortunately, that was quite some time ago."

It was Gabriel's voice.

Henri stared open-mouthed from Elizabeth to…was that really _Gabriel?_ "Do you mean—I mean, he's not really--"

"Yes, this is my fiancé, Gabriel Noirmort," she responded with a stubborn set of her jaw. As they approached the table, he noticed something else—Gabriel had a tail.

_Oh dear Christ and Mother Mary, I have to be dreaming! In no reality—no _logical_ reality—can my daughter's fiancé have a _tail!

Said fiancé continued to be interested with his boots, and Elizabeth began to explain. When she had finished, Henri sat in silence for a moment, trying to wrap his mind around it all.

"You're telling me," he said, turning to Gabriel, "that a demon came here in '59, and…turned you into this?"

He glanced up. "As crazy as that sounds, yes." He laughed. "Perhaps not that crazy once you get a good look at me."

"And then you," he continued, turning to Elizabeth, "came here because he ordered it?"

"Actually," she corrected, "it was just a misunderstanding, see—Giles over-reacted, and--"

Henri held up his hand, interrupting her. "So there used to be a cure for your…your 'curse'?" Gabriel nodded. "But then the demon that changed you into this came back and kidnapped you both, and you bartered your way back by offering to stay this way, and then…"

"We've just stayed here in the castle ever since," Elizabeth said a tad quickly. She and Gabriel exchanged quick glances.

"Something you're not telling me? If it's to spare me of any shock, I think it's a tad late for that, no?"

"We did take a vacation to Paris," Gabriel admitted, "but the details really aren't all that important."

"Not at all," Elizabeth agreed. "Boring, simple. We stayed with Jocelynn—she had baby girl, by the way: Caroline, very adorable girl. You know, her middle name is--"

Henri shook his head. "Fine, I can see that you don't feel comfortable. But tell me this: how did you—Gabriel—manage?"

Gabriel blinked. "If you mean as to how I went to Paris without ending up in a circus…well, I almost did—Ouch! I mean," he backtracked quickly, massaging the place where Elizabeth's elbow had connected with his ribs, "I _did_, but in order to explain that, we'd have to go into a whole other story, and it's a little on the long side." He looked at Henri with an expression that reminded him of a puppy. "M. Merle, everything aside, I love your daughter very much, and while I may look a little…unusual, I would never let any harm come to her--"

"I gave up keeping track of the number of times he's saved my life," she added in helpfully. "And, really, he's not all that bad—you get used to him fast, believe me." She gestured at his face. "Seriously: how can someone with a look that pathetic be dangerous?"

"Pathetic?" Gabriel echoed.

"Well, sorry, dear, but the big, shiny puppy eyes combined with the fur…" She clapped him on the arm and turned back to Henri. "Do the puppy-eyes still work on you?"

Henri sighed and rubbed his temples. "This is all really happening."

They nodded in sync.

"I suppose," he said at last, "that whatever my opinion is, you'll be wed regardless."

"You've already offered the dress," Elizabeth pointed out. "And the invitations have all been sent out…"

Henri opened his mouth…

"Sweets for all!" Ella shouted, dropping an armload of assorted baked goods and candies onto the table. "Eighty-six more times left!"

Henri groaned and banged his head off the table.

* * *

Click the review button…you know you want to. 


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thanks for all the good reviews, as always. I'm already starting to miss Kal, so guess who's showing up in this chapter?

"I feel without alarm...

I feel without alarm--co-ack!

With its melody enwind me--co-ack!

And all my heart sub--co-ack!"

-from Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux

* * *

After a night of uneasy sleep—for Henri, at least—Elizabeth got Gabriel to show her father around the castle, an idea that worked out surprisingly well. It gave her father time to get used to Gabriel (she still was a little puzzled as to why it was taking him so long), and for Gabriel, in his own way, to get used to being around him.

"I don't see why you're getting all nervous about being around him," she told her fiancé before they retired to their separate rooms. "You were fine around me after taking off that moth-eaten old hood of yours. If I remember correctly," she said, grinning, "you let yourself be used as a pillow."

To which he responded "But then, I'm not madly in love with your father, am I, ange?"

"You weren't madly in love with me then, either…or were you?" Elizabeth poked him the ribs. "Sneak!"

Gabriel thankfully didn't get turned around while he guided them—that would have been a bit embarrassing—but every so often, mostly while they—being him, Elizabeth, and Henri—were on a higher floor—he would skip a few rooms instead of pointing them out as either storage or guest rooms, or trot up further ahead to take down a painting and put it on the floor facing a wall. Once or twice, he avoided an entire section entirely. Henri barely noticed it, as he spent most of the time staring at the expensive surroundings or at Gabriel. Elizabeth hung back, letting Gabriel do all the talking and wanting to encourage her father to talk to Gabriel of his own accord.

"The topmost floors are quite dusty by now," Gabriel explained, "They've been out of use for a long while before my parents even left, and I've never bother going up there myself."

"How long ago did they leave?" Henri questioned.

"Nearly fourteen years now," Gabriel answered, almost automatically.

"I see…and you were how old when they left?"

"Thirteen."

Henri raised his eyebrows. "Quite a young age to be leaving a child, isn't it?"

Gabriel nodded his head in agreement. "It is, I suppose, but I was capable enough by then of taking care of myself. They did have some incentive, though," he added dryly, waving a hand at his face.

Elizabeth made a note of asking him a bit more about that later on. She had been wondering about that: he had been not much more than a child, and a child brought up in a castle with dozens of servants on top of that. How, exactly, _had_ he managed, to get food to eat as well as getting new clothes?

_That's definitely a question to remember, _she thought to herself, eyeing Gabriel. _He's quite above average height—where in the world did he find clothes that fit him?_

They moved to the main floor again, and the conversation moved back to Gabriel. "You mentioned having two siblings yesterday—or Elizabeth did, actually."

"Yes--two older sisters. Twins." He glance out of the corner of his eye and smiled. "Not much resemblance between me and them," he joked.

"Do they live in France, still?"

He shrugged. "I can't say—neither of us bothered to stay in touch. I wasn't very…close, shall we say, to my sisters." Gabriel dropped the subject and went back to the safer subject of the castle. "We went in a circle, so we're back at the entrance room, which you've seen before." He stopped abruptly at the West staircase, causing both of them to walk into him.

Elizabeth side-stepped at looked over the entrance room, where he was staring. "Something the matter?"

"I think I hear--" One of the main entrance doors flew in off its hinges, skidding across the floor and colliding with the bottom step of the north staircase. "—someone coming,' he finished, and jumped over the railing, landing neatly on the floor below.

She turned to Henri. "You'd best stay here," she advised, but then recognized the people stepping it.

"You didn't have to knock the door out of its frame!" A familiar dark-blonde haired girl snapped at her taller, black haired companion.

"It was sticky," he grumbled.

"It's fine," Gabriel said, picking up the door and carrying it over. "It was a little sticky, anyways. Nice to see you two again, by the way."

"Same here!" Elizabeth called down. "More friends," she explained to her father, then ran down to meet them.

"Can't say the same goes for me," blind Kal said dryly, folding his wings into his back, "but it's always a pleasure to hear and smell you."

Allie squealed and hugged Elizabeth. "It's so nice of you letting us stay here! I can't wait to actually _enjoy_ sleeping in one of these beds—here, let me help with that, Gabe!"

"Gabe?" he echoed, blinking.

She ran over to where Gabriel was fitting the door back in its frame and snapped her forefinger and thumb briskly: the door went back into place, as did the hinges.

Kal whipped his head up at the banister where Henri lingered. "Who the hell's that?"

"Kal, manners!" Allie snapped, she and Gabriel rejoining them.

"Never heard of 'em."

Allie rolled her eyes. "Liz, will you please introduce us?"

She giggled. "Allie, Kal, this is my father, Henri Merle; Father, these are our friends, Allison Destra and Kal…" she trailed off, waiting for either of them to supply a last name.

"_Just _Kal," he said pointedly, directing the answer at Allie.

"Oh _really_, Kalendrakk R--"

"Our friends Allie and Kal," Elizabeth interrupted, "are going to be staying with us up to the wedding."

Henri nodded and waved from his spot. "It's very, um, nice meeting you."

Allie waved back and then curtsied. "Likewise, M. Merle—ignore Kal, he has about as much manners as a worm."

Gabriel glanced around. "Is your friend Death with you?"

"For once, no." Looking amused, he added "He decided me and the Princess here were causing him too much stress, and his poor old heart couldn't take it. So he took a vacation."

"I won't even bother to ask," Henri muttered, coming down the stairs. "Forgive me, but I should be checking up on the farm; I don't trust that halfwit James to do it." He kissed the top of Elizabeth's head and held shook hands with Gabriel, and then left in the direction of the stables.

Kal was sniffing the air. "Did you two realize," he said, "that you have demons living beneath the castle?"

"Don't tell me there was more that one!" Elizabeth groaned, just before Gabriel said "You're joking."

Allie frowned and tugged on Kal's shirtsleeve. "You aren't, are you?"

Kal raised an eyebrow. "Find you for yourself. Am I?" They watched as Allie closed her eyes and tilted her head, as if listening to something.

"He's not," she sighed dejectedly. "Sorry about your bad luck; you already ran into one?"

Gabriel quickly explained what had happened yesterday afternoon, starting with the demon and ending with Rose.

"She healed herself?" Allie asked incredulously, looking from Gabriel to Elizabeth.

The both shrugged. "I don't see how it could have happened otherwise."

Kal shook his head. "A cat healing itself, after being that close to dying? Unless the thing's a demon of sorts, I doubt it. Even if it _was_…"

Allie finished the sentence for him. "It would have done it earlier, and not when it was dying. I'll check up on her later on, and see if she's completely healed. For now, let's focus on the demon problem," she suggested. "I could make them all leave with a spell or two--"

"Or I could just go down and kill 'em all," Kal interrupted, a smile starting on his face.

"Well--" Elizabeth started, but was interrupted by Allie.

"No slaughter in the castle!" Allie told him, a look akin to horror on her face. "All that blood--"

"If it's in the dungeon, it could matter less," Gabriel cut in. "Lord knows how much blood that place has seen before."

"It's settled then." Kal, grinning broadly, ruffled Allie's head. "I could use a little fun after carrying you around all day," he said lightly. Allie laughed and Elizabeth swore she heard the end of a sentence—

_-... complaining.-_

--but it was too faint and echo-y to be sure of much. She shook her head, trying to clear it.

"Go gossip or something," he advised Allie. "I won't be long." Without another word, he walked up the north staircase and in the proper direction without so much as asking Gabriel.

There was a beat of silence, and then Allie spoke up brightly. "Well? Aren't you going to offer to show me around?"

* * *

"It looks like that one fell down." Allie pointed to one of the pictures Gabriel had take down earlier. "Here--" She flicked her forefinger and it levitated, flipping the right way around at eye level. Before either girl could glimpse much more than a flash of colour, Gabriel moved around them quickly to stand in front of it.

"It's really not all that interesting of a painting," he said quickly.

Allie's eyes flashed, and then she blinked, looking confused. "What's so bad about a family portrait?"

"A portrait?" Elizabeth echoed, trying to see behind Gabriel.

Gabriel was staring confusedly at Allie. "How did you know that?"

"Just blame it on Kal. Come on, let us see it!"

"_You_ did—you read my mind, didn't you?"

"Only a teensy bit—and I just saw a flicker," she complained. "Please?"

He sighed and stepped away, revealing the good-sized oil painting. It was in drab tones, mostly because none of the people posing in the picture had much colour, in their clothes or skin.

Gabriel's mother and Father stood at the back, the father with his arm draped around his wife's waist. Both had pale complexions that looked as though they had seen next to no sunlight, and thick dark hair, the man's straight and the woman's wavy. The two girls, who couldn't have been much older than Allie or Elizabeth, had to be his sisters. They were identical right down to their jewelry and small birthmark next to their right eye. Gabriel himself stood at his mother's side, her hand resting on his shoulder. He looked very young, but was already nearly as tall as his mother. The younger, human version of Gabriel stared unsmilingly out of the painting, but there was the slightest bit of a smile in his brown eyes. His hair was the same length, but obviously much better cared for.

Elizabeth's eyes flickered from the painting to Gabriel then back. "How old were you when this was made?"

"It was done in the spring of '59, as a birthday gift to my mother. I would have been twelve then, not quite a teenager." He shot the painting an uncomfortable look, dropped his eyes. Meaning, Elizabeth realized, the year he was cursed. God, it just kept coming back and smacking him in the face, didn't it?

She decided to leave that bit unspoken. "Only twelve and you were_ that_ tall?" She then smiled. "Not that surprising, considering your current height!"

He smiled faintly. "I would have actually not grown much more than that, maybe three inches, five at the most. Demon magic…particularly this specific brand…has ill affects on a child's metabolism."

Allie nodded. "You're right about that; it's the same with Kal."

"Kal?" Elizabeth asked. "But I thought he was…"

"Born that way?" Allie finished. "He was, but, according to Jessica anyways, he falls under the same category of demon as Gabriel. Somehow he was born that way—it doesn't make much sense. I wasn't really even listening. That aside, the point of all that babble was that Kal's taller than average for his kind." She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "My mouth just runs on and on, doesn't it? My, those clothes are out of style." Referring to the painting.

Gabriel shrugged. "What can you expect?" He glanced back at the painting. "Uncomfortable, as well. I remember that outfit they insisted I wear being itchy and hot."

Elizabeth had to smile at the thought of the current Gabriel wearing the outfit in the painting—the idea of all the ruffles was laughable.

Gabriel gave the painting one last glance and offered Elizabeth his arm. "Let's move on, shall we?"

"Can we go to the roof?" Allie asked eagerly, skipping ahead of them. "I saw it when we came, but I bet it looks even better without the wind whipping your hair in your eyes!"

"Certainly. I haven't been up there for a while, but I remember leaving the door unlocked."

Elizabeth blinked in surprise. "Your memory must be excellent to remember details like that, from all those years ago."

He laughed. "That was just the year before last—I remember going up to…"

Allie stopped suddenly and stared over her shoulder at him, her dark blue eyes flashing in some emotion—surprise? Gabriel smiled and continued. "To watch the sun rise."

"You're lucky," Allie whined. What ever had surprised her seconds earlier seemed to have disappeared from her immediate thoughts. "Your fiancé is so _sensitive_! Can you picture _Kal,_ waking up to watch the sun rise?"

* * *

Kal shook the blood of his fingers with a practiced flick of his hands, the odor of the blood strong in his nose. The demons were an insult to, well, _other_ demons—their flesh had been soft as their pathetic attempts at an attack. He strongly suspected he would have been able to kill them had he been deaf as well as blind, and short an arm and a leg. The only injury he'd sustained was his own fault: he had tripped over the head of one of the corpses and fallen headfirst into the wall, rapping himself pretty good on the forehead.

"Alright, nice trick--now try getting _out_ of the dungeons," he muttered to himself. "Stupid eyes. One day, Princess is going to _get_ it for messin' them up."

A voice in the back of his head spoke up, in his own sarcastic drawl—obviously, because it was his own thought_. Oh _is_ she now?_ _What _is_ she going to get, exactly?_

Kal flipped his hair out of his face impatiently, trying to ignore his own thoughts and get out of the reeking place. Maybe it was just his own messed-up mind, but in the mix of smells—blood, rot, and, very far off, the Princess and the others—he kept getting pine trees. Ridiculous, of course, there were no pine trees anywhere on the castle grounds, but still…

Curiosity ended up getting the better of him and he went in the direction it was the strongest, in the direction—if his memory served him right—completely opposite of the staircase he had come down.

"You're really going insane, aren't you?" he asked himself aloud in a wondering voice. "Wandering around on the account of ghost-scents…and, beyond that, your pointless schemes and plans for…" He trailed off and back-tracked his steps running his hand back over the section of the wall it had passed. It was a far cry from the cheap stone that made the walls; from the feel of it, some sort of smooth, engraved wood. Impossible to tell what the words on it were: even if he wasn't blind, he was illiterate in the alphabet the humans used, as well as in French, English, or any other language. He could speak it fine, and that where the talent stopped.

"Probably just a junky sign," he muttered. He pushed away from the wall, meaning to continue, and stepped directly into the trapdoor that opened up in front of him, landing inelegantly twelve feet down on his side.

_Smart, Kal, very smart,_ he thought as he waited for his breath to return to him. The floor under his hands was very smooth, much to smooth to be stone, and without any breaks in it, which outlawed wood. _Steel, then?_

"Look and find out for yourself."

He leapt to his feet, head turning to try and identify the direction the voice had come from, while his head raced to try and place it. It was oddly familiar, that voice. "Who are you?" he growled. Instead of getting a scent of the person, he got something else: the salty breeze that would come off an ocean, fish, bird feathers…and the clean smell of pine trees.

"Look at me," the familiar voice replied smoothly. It took him a moment to realize that whoever the guy was in this hidden room, he was speaking in Kohm'kiiten, a language that saw little use since those that had created it, the Raven demons, died.

"I'm blind." Now using the same language, he stepped forward, almost loosing his footing on the slippery floor. "Where are you, _sa kiiyen_?"

The stranger chuckled lightly. "Do I have to repeat myself for a second time? Look at me…_sa kiiyen_. Use the eyes you were born with."

Kal sensed something moving next to him…no, that wasn't right: he _saw_ something. Dark shadows danced in his eyes, slowly becoming shapes and different colours, getting brighter…

He raised a hand in front of his face, and for the first time in over a year, _saw _it in perfect detail, down to every last wrinkle.

He whirled around and found himself face to face with the stranger.

Himself.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Pictures of Kal and Gabe can be found here: http://l-scarborough.deviantart . com

A lot of the Kal stuff are chibis, and is in the "Scraps".

Sorry, but I won't be able to post anything for a week--I'm going to a cottage in Michigan for a week.

"Perhaps kicking your ass will brighten my spirits?"

-Richard, Phantom of the Opera (1989)

* * *

Gabriel stared out across the forest, the cold night wind trying to muss his hair further and failing. In the circle of his arms, Rose slept, curled up into a tight, furry ball, not interested in the view or that they sat on the edge of the roof. Normally, he would have invited Elizabeth to join him, but at the moment, she and Allison were lounging in the guest room Allison was using, chatting about meaningless, everyday things. Normal and comfortable subjects. As he himself got lost in seconds on their topics, he decided to go back to the roof for a while. The view really was beautiful, something he hadn't noticed last time he had come up here. What he'd told the girls was a small lie: a believable one, but a lie. It had been long past dawn when he had stumbled up, just barely sober and tired and in a horrible mood. It was nearly midnight, and he hadn't taken interest in anything but the cool air. Of course, being clumsy as he was, and half-drunk to boot, he had tripped and done something a bit more dramatic than falling flat on his face: he stumbled around and gone over the edge of the roof. If not for the balcony not that far below…well, the gory details would be best left to those with morbid imaginations. Still, that wasn't the entire reason he had lied. After falling, he regained consciousness not long after, and had regretted it, the headache and sore limbs being as much a factor as his own body.

That hopelessness, and that old spite for himself, his family, Jason, and basically everything connected to that, was what he sensed Allison had glimpsed in his mind, along with jumbled images of that day.

And he didn't want the image of him as a despairing drunk stumbling around in Elizabeth's head. But, now with his head cleared by the night air, he found himself actually smiling at the memory. Had he really been that stupid? "Well, Rose?" He asked the cat, a habit of his to talk to her. "Was your master being an idiot for wallowing in his angst like that, or what?" He laughed at himself for talking to a cat (an asleep one, on top of that), not for the first time, either, and continued anyways. "Why don't we just put all those memories in a room and lock the door? What do you say?" The cat twitched an ear.

* * *

"I wonder if Kal's back yet," Elizabeth said, glancing up at the clock. "He's been gone an awfully long time…"

Allie shrugged, not worried in the least. If something had happened to him, she wouldn have know. "He'll be back. He's probably just resting or something—hasn't slept for a week, the idiot."

"You mentioned that in the book you sent us." She looked at Allie pointedly. "It had a lot of interesting stuff in it. Except one _little_ thing…"

Allie caught on and laughed. "A satisfactory ending, d'you mean?"

Elizabeth crossed her arms and mock-pouted. "_All_ books should have a good ending."

That only broadened her grin. "We had difficulty deciding on when to end it. Anyways, would you _want_ to read through all those months with you and Gabriel and us all lazing around?"

She considered. "I guess not…but you left so much stuff _out!_ What happened in the months before you met us? How did you end up in the Garnier opera house? And did Kal's curse end up being broken? What about you two, are you--"

"Easy, Liz, before you blow a lung!" Allie lowered her voice. "And don't mention anything about Kal and I—there's been a bit of trouble about that. With…certain other people."

"Then you two--" She caught herself and started over. "Then you…and your, um…"

"Reymond Mort," Allie supplied with a laugh. "Have you forgotten his name already?"

"Reymond, right! You and he…?"

Allie smiled and held up her hand. "Tell you what: why not wait until he decides to socialize, and then _we'll_ tell you, and Gabriel."

She nodded in agreement. "Sounds fair—and promise you'll fill in the missing parts of the story."

Allie raised her eyebrow, pretending to be offended. "Story? What are we, book-characters in one of your faery tales?" She held her hand out, palm up, and used her illusions to create two small figures: Kal and herself, with insect-wings. Elizabeth laughed at the small trick, and she blew gently on the figures, at the same time dissolving the illusion into brightly colored dust.

Elizabeth applauded. "How did you do that?"

"Simple illusionary magic—like the kind Kal uses to make himself appear human," she explained, "but a bit more complex. Like that pendant I gave Gabriel—that was an illusion-spell."

Elizabeth sighed wistfully and propped her chin in her palms. "I wish I could do something like that—it would be so much fun!"

Allie eyed her carefully. _She said "I wish"…then she doesn't know of the magic she has in her. A lot like I used to. Should I tell her? Well, why the hell not? It can't hurt._ "Maybe you can."

She sat up straight. "What?"

Now planning, she leaned forward, eyes flashing. "I could teach you. If you want, that is."

Elizabeth considered the offer for a moment, the shook her head. "Thank you, but I think it would just be a waste of your time…after all, what good can teaching do if I have no skills to begin with?"

"You _do—_have magical talents, I mean." Something clicked in Allie's head, something that had been puzzling her. "The cat."

"Beg your pardon?"

"Gabriel's cat; Rose. You two think that she healed herself, but that's impossible, in more ways than one. That means that someone else must have healed her: it couldn't have been the fey, they're not strong enough. That leaves you, or Gabriel. And I haven't sensed any magic in Gabriel."

She thought about that. "Well…"

"And you talked to Kal once, in the Garnier," Allie continued, now on a roll.

"How did you--"

"I'm linked telepathically to him, of course. My point is, you were at the very back of the theatre, and Kal was on stage. His normal ability to read minds only works when the person is close to him, a few steps away or so. Unless they have the same ability: then it's easier."

"Well," she repeated. "Gabriel was saying the other day that, given everything that's happened to him and me…everything can be considered possible, pretty much." She stretched her legs out from under her and yawned. "It's getting a little late, and I was planning on finishing a book." Elizabeth held out her hand for Allie to shake. "I'm changing my answer to yes, if you teach me. Deal?"

Allie shook it, grinning. "Great! It'll be a nice change to be the teacher for once!" She grinned at Elizabeth, who was like her in more ways than one: magic, previously sheltered life, blonde hair, blue eyes, not very tall…had fallen for demon. "Go on then, you hopeless bookworm."

Elizabeth stood and flexed the pins-and-needles out of her feet. "We usually eat breakfast at eight or so, in the ballroom—that is, if we don't sleep in. Just call for Ella or Fraya if you need help finding it." She left the room, pausing to call "Goodnight" over her shoulder.

"'Night!" Allie yelled after her. Then she closed her eyes and felt along the link that connected Kal's mind to hers.

_-Hey, Kal! Did you fall asleep down there?-_

No answer, but she sensed he was alright. And, oddly enough, she caught a whiff of something: pine trees. _Maybe he _is _asleep, and dreaming…_ _-Kal? Can you hear me?-_

_**-…I'm fine…- **_His voice came back, faint and a little slurred. _**–sleeping-**_

_-Alright then, you odd creature. Goodnight.-_ She smiled to herself—he always did the strangest things…falling asleep in a dungeon!_ At least he's alright. No doubt he'll wander back up here in the middle of the night and end up waking me up with his music-playing._

* * *

Kal blinked his eyes hard, wondering if his newly-regained sight was somehow mistaken. There were mirrors in the room—the walls were _made_ with them, as well as the floor—but while no faults could be felt, they were all shattered into smaller pieces. And he—the_ other_ he—wasn't fragmented.

The other Kal smiled softly. "Confused?" His hair was well-cared for, and neatly tied back with a string. His clothes were old and worn, a faded brown shirt and slate-colored breeches that may have once been black, but clean. He was barefoot. And, what made him even more different: he had no scars. Not one.

Kal cracked his knuckles, glaring at his counterpart—it had to be some sort of shape-shifter. And shape-shifters were weak. "Only about which way to kill you."

The other Kal, appearing far from frightened, tilted his head questioningly. "You don't wish to see, then?"

"See _what_?"

The other swept an arm in a half-circle, gesturing to the walls of broken mirror. "This is the room of dreams—not specifically your dreams, the sort you have whilst asleep, but dreams of everything: dreams of what the future may have been, what the past may have been…and so on."

Kal scowled. "Why the hell would _I _care about that?"

"It doesn't matter whether you care or not—the room shows it, regardless of your wish." He stepped to the side, so Kal could see his own broken-up reflection. "This is a dream of what the future may have been."

Kal stared at the wall in spite of himself, watching as the broken mirrors knit themselves together, becoming smooth. Only, it didn't show his reflection; not quite. Instead, it showed the ocean…and the other him laying on a flat rock feet dangling in the water.

"See," the other Kal told him.

Kal collapsed on the floor, and the one in the mirror stirred.

* * *

He wasn't aware he had dozed off until he felt the hot sun on his face. Past noon, then, he thought, becoming fully awake in a matter of seconds, as was his habit.

There was something behind him.

"Shh, you'll wake him up!" a voice he recognized hiss.

"_You_ shush!"

He kept his face straight (with a great deal of effort) and continued to breathe deeply. When the water-orb came at him, he sent it back with a practiced flick of his hand, sitting up as it hit the target.

"Yet another failed attempt; Al'xen, Saro." He acknowledged the two, both his age, with a broad grin. His friends were always trying to pull jokes like that on him…and they almost always failed. He gave them credit for trying, though.

Saro, the one the water-orb ended up hitting, flicked his hair, now a darker brown, out of his face. "Nice aim."

"Just you wait!" Al'xen laughed, his brown eyes crinkled at the corners. "We'll get you yet, Kal!"

Kal narrowed his eyes. "Oh, will you now?" Al'xen and Saro were the jokers of his village, but Kal came in as a close second.

Without taking his eyes off them, he raised an arm. Behind him, a wave rose accordingly.

Their eyes widened in identical expressions of surprise.

"I win." Kal brought the ten-foot wave down on them, laughing harder as they shook their wings off, sputtering. "That'll teach you two to sneak up in me while I'm napping!"

Al'xen rolled his eyes, magically drying off his cropped black hair and his clothes; Saro followed suit. "Or any other minute of day or night."

Kal shrugged and offered his hand. "Truce?"

"For now."

Saro plucked a small fish out of the front of his shirt. "Hungry, anyone?"

"Like we would want to eat it after it's been in contact with your skin!" Kal exclaimed with mock horror. "It's probably now contaminated with your bad practical jokes!"

"Look who's talking, Kal!" Al'xen grabbed the fish out of Saro's hands and tossed it at him. "Who, exactly, was it that stuck my bed to the ceiling?"

He laughed and held up his hands. "Guilty." Glancing up at the sun again, he motioned towards the mountains. "Shall we? It's lunch, and I haven't yet had breakfast."

"Kii, I guess." Saro, the most agile flier out of the bunch, took to the air first, followed by Al'xen. Kal waited a measured amount before even unfurling his wings. When they were a good distance ahead, he followed, above them and a wingspan away. It was necessary: with his dangerous wings, he had to keep a safe distance. It didn't matter, in terms of communication, with their Raven demon eyes and ears.

"I heard that Karay is home from her trip," Kal called casually to Saro. His friend had developed a soft spot for his older sister, who had left for human territory across the ocean, a place called England.

"Really?" Then, trying to sound casual, "She's back already?"

Kal tried not to laugh at his friend's eager tones. "Kii—she came back last night. And guess what? Drel's engaged!"

"To a human?" Al'xen asked incredulously. Raven demons, as a rule, tended not to marry mortals.

"No, a vampire. Her name is…" he tried to remember her name. "Alexandra, I think." Not exactly, though—with his Kohm'kiiten accent, he had pronounced it as "Alehyzan'dra".

"Moving back to Karay," Saro said impatiently. "Anything else?"

Kal held up his hands, as shrugging while flying while flying didn't work well. "Like what? After talking, she went to sleep. She'll be up by now, if you're curious. You could go over to her house, but…you're probably busy. The game, remember?"

Every year or so, Raven demons (mostly around Kal's age) would gather at a spot on in the mountains for what they called "bo'du", or, simply, the game. The object of the game was to throw rocks at the other players: whoever dodged them all successfully won.

Al'xen laughed. "Now, Kal, which one would _you_ choose? Time with a girl, or the game?"

Kal actually considered it for a moment, to his friends' surprise. "The game—it's a lot of fun. For me, anyways."

"That's because you always win," Saro and Al'xen grumbled in sync. They all looked at each other , and broke down.

"Seriously, Kal," Saro pressed on. "You're joking, aren't you?"

Kal held up his hands again, confused. "Why would I be? I really would rather play the game. We're _immortal._ We can waste hundreds of years on wooing if we wanted to—why bother with it now?" He grinned and took off his illusions for a minute. "Besides," he added, "can you picture _anyone_ wanting to spend a day with this face? Come on, _picture_ it."

Saro tilted his head. "I can, actually." He pretended to shudder.

"Scary," Al'xen laughed. He rolled his eyes to show he was joking. "Really."

Kal turned over in the air. "I'm joking, anyways. I'm just not interested. And am _starving_, besides—see you at the game, Al'xen. And she loves golden finches," he added, looking pointedly at Saro.

He folded his wings into a dive, landing neatly at his front door. His house was half wood; the other half was stone, as it was built into the mountainside. Three evergreens stood on each side—he loved the smell. Something now sat in one of the trees, feet almost touching the roof of his house.

He recognized the person before she jumped down from her perch. "Jessica!"

She smiled and addressed him using his language. "Kiu, Kal—everything well?"

"Yes, yes, of course." Kal nodded to the door. "I was about to eat—would you like to come in?"

"That would be nice. I've been waiting out here for an hour," she added. Keeping the edge out of her voice.

"You wanted to speak with me?" Closing the door behind him, he glanced up at the runes over the door, glowing purple. He checked them quickly with his mind, making sure the magic hadn't faded. His father had carved them over his bedroom door when he was a child, and had done the same with the doorframe over Kal's house when Kal had built it. They were used to repel evil and like negative energy, and give peace.

She narrowed her golden eyes at him—Kal had learned long ago that she didn't have much patience for rhetorical questions…or for much in general. "No, I just thought it was a lovely day for sitting in a sticky tree."

Kal smiled helplessly and pulled out a chair for her to sit. "Would you like a drink?"

"Several, but probably not what you have in mind," she sighed. "Water would be fine."

He got her the drink and sat down across from her, puzzled. Jessica, an Eagle demon, had started to visit his family shortly after his fifth birthday. Her visits were always quick and polite…as if she were just checking in on them. Kal in particular.

"Kal, there are certain matters we need to address." Jessica sat with perfect posture in the chair, making him feel self-conscious about his own bad posture.

_Why is she staring at me like that?_ He thought nervously.

"Have your parents…ever spoken to you about a human girl?"

* * *

Gabriel looked up briefly from the papers scattered across his desk to glance at the clock. It was two in the morning, but he wasn't tired in the least. His eyes ached a little from staring so long, but, other than that…

He tried to organize the mess of sketches and music scores. He'd been going through his desk with intents to try and organize it: not a very smart idea. The drawers were so full over paper, ink, pens, books, and other odds and ends that it was a wonder the desk hadn't collapsed from the sheer weight of it all. Now, he tried to sort out all the junk into organized piles.

What caught his eye was a leather binder. Inside were the sketches he had made in his teen years, probably around the time he was sixteen or seventeen. Mostly rough sketches of the garden, the flowers, the old tree by the gate, and a handful of people: his family, Jason, and, one heavily smudged one of himself that he had done in charcoal. He didn't remember it very well, except that he had done it using a hand mirror. The mirror in question slid out of the papers, a small thing. He moved to put in the pile of junk, but saw something that made him hold it up.

Gabriel's eyes were brown. Not red and black, but normal brown with normal whites. He stared at the mirror for a while in frozen surprise, and then saw something move behind him.

"Ange, what are you doing awake?" He rose and walked over to her. She was barefoot, and dressed in an old nightgown, and hair was a wild bird's nest.

"I couldn't sleep," she sighed. "I mean, I could, but then…" She smiled and shook her head. Gabriel thought the smile looked a more that a little forced.

"What is it?"

"Nothing. It was just a bad dream." She ran a hand through her hair. "I'm just being silly, coming into your room this early barely dressed and…never mind."

"No, that's fine—I mean, I'm not implying anything—I meant--" He mentally kicked himself and started over. "Would you like me to walk you back to your room?"

Elizabeth smiled faintly and nodded, taking his arm. When they arrived at her room, he glanced down at her. Her usually calm and happy face was drawn back down into a worried frown, and her eyes were bloodshot.

"Are you certain you're alright?"

She bit her lip. "Yes, I'm_ fine_—it was just…a nightmare. A bad nightmare."

"Would you like me to stay until you fall asleep?"

"No, no, I'll be alright. Kiss?" She tugged on his sleeve—another disadvantage of their difference in height.

He kissed her goodnight and smoothed her hair down. "Sleep well."

"I'll try—goodnight."

"Goodnight." He considered going back to his room, but instead turned at the staircase and went into the music room. He wasn't to sleep anytime soon, anyway.

_I wonder what she dreamt that upset her so?_


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Can you _believe_ that Elizabeth and Gabriel forgot that Liz was married? I mean, that's pretty stupid, them forgetting something like that…I mean_, I_ wouldn't do something like that.

(coughcough)

"See, these eyes are the only part of me I can look at in a mirror without wanting to break the glass."

-Erik, 1990 TV version (played by Charles Dance)

* * *

_The body on the bank was wounded—so badly, one would barely able to tell it was, in fact, the body of a man. The legs were shredded and broken, twisted and lying at odd angles. The arms were also broken in multiple places, as were the hands; but the latter gripped at the rocky edge of the shoreline, as if there was still life enough in them. The back looked as if some wild animal had mauled it, and one could fancy they saw the spine of the unfortunate man. The nakedness of him would barely be noted, if there were anyone to see him, for he wore a heavy cloak of blood, already congealed. How long the body has been laying on the riverbank is difficult to say._

_The color of his hair was impossible to tell: it was caked with blood and dirt and mud, and fill with bits of twig and dead leaf. And yet, startlingly, the head moved, as did the back: he was breathing in shallow gasps, and trying to lift his head. The man should be dead—by all logic, it should be impossible for him to be alive._

_He looked up, and his golden eyes were so bloodshot, it seemed as if they, like the rest of his body, were soaked with blood. He was weeping._

"_Marie…?" He said over and over again, in the voice of a broken, scared child. "Marie…? Where are you? Marie…?_

"_Marie…?"_

The library—comforting, familiar, warm. No cold riverbank, no broken body: just the castle library, and a book facedown in her lap. She had dozed off.

Elizabeth shook her head, even though the details of her nightmare were already beginning to blur. It wasn't until she lifted her hands to scrub her face that she noticed the sticky tears on her face.

She sighed and wiped her face with the back of her hand. "I'm going mad." The matter-of-fact way the statement came out brought a smile to her face for a second. _It must be nerves—the wedding and all. And the history with Jason and all…well, no wonder I had a few nightmares about him._

She shrugged it off and went back to her book, only to put it down again when Gabriel walked in to the room.

"I'm beginning to wonder if our two guests eloped together," he said, sitting down next to her.

"So did I," she admitted with a smile, the nightmare gone from her head for the moment. "Until I went to her room to see if she would be joining us for breakfast."

"They're in her room?"

She nodded. "Sleeping like babies. And, in Allie's case, snoring loud enough to wake the dead."

Gabriel chuckled, obviously relieved. "I was beginning to think that something had happened."

"Like what?" she questioned. "Eloping or something a bit less pleasant?"

"The latter. The dungeons, you see, have dozens of traps and trap-doors. Very easy to fall into one if you don't know where they are—when Kal was so late returning, I would have thought he had fallen into one, if Allison had said otherwise."

"You asked her?"

"Yes." Gabriel sighed dramatically and ran a hand through his hair—or, as far as the knots and snarls would allow. "What kind of host would I be if I allowed my guests to get trapped in the dungeons?

Elizabeth smiled and shifted, leaning against his torso. He made a bony pillow, but a preferable one, nonetheless. "Not a very good one, I guess."

He glanced down at her as she stifled a yawn with her hand. "Did you sleep well, after your nightmare?" he asked, combing her hair back from her face with his fingers; he had long since filed the points of his claws down, for fear of accidentally scratching her.

"Like a dead person," she lied. Every time she drifted off to sleep, it seemed that horrible nightmare was waiting for her, like a predator crouched in the shadows, waiting for its prey. "Not a single dream. I guess I'm just a little dozy—you got me addicted to that coffee of yours, it seems."

"How cruel of me—would you like me to fetch you a cup?"

She giggled at the way he phrased he sentence. "Yes, dog, fetch!" She stood as he did. "I was only joking; I don't need to be served."

He wagged his tail. "Woof."

* * *

**Yesterday night, back in the Room of Dreams.**

"OY! Quiet down, you flea-bitten crows!" The shout was surprisingly loud, coming from one of the thinnest of the raven-demons that stood on the edge of the cliff.

"You quiet down, tar'nii!" Another shouted back, using the Rehniikah term for "runt".

"Yeah, Jaro,_ kaza-sa_!" _Quiet, you!_

Jaro bristled and drew in a deep breath, shouting even louder to be heard. "ARE WE GOING TO PLAY, YOU BUZZARDS, OR NOT?"

Al'xen looked up. "We're just waiting for Kal! He said he was coming!"

"What?" Jaro, while one of the loudest, had ears less sharp than most.

"I _SAID_, WE'RE WAITING FOR KAL TO START!" Then, in normal voice. "oh, there he is!" He pointed to the black spot in the bright sky, which was growing steadily closer.

Kal folded his wings and dropped neatly into the middle of the group, yelling "Sorry! I got held up!"

"Took you long enough," Tam, a girl with a boyish build and temperament, grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.

Kal grinned apologetically and held up his hands, palms out. "I had a guest--"

"Let's just start the game already," someone to his right sighed. "What'll it be this time? Teams?" He was met with loud protests.

"Every demon for himself!" An emerald-eyed boy, who Kal recognized as his older cousin on his mother's side, shouted. Everyone else, including Kal, cheered and spread their wings, jumping off the cliff into open air.

The spot was wide-open space for miles, above deep valley in the mountainside. Far at the bottom was a tiny blue spot: a lake. Everyone hurried to fill their arms with rocks from the cliff-side, the largest being the size of a fist.

Then the air exploded into movement: rocks flying through the air, and the Raven demons dodging them. Limbs blurred and loose feathers flew through the air like autumn leaves.

The rules were simple: if you got hit, you sat out. To keep from cheating, they magicked the rocks to glow with dull light; if one hit you, the magic would rub off and leave a spot.

As usual, even with over a hundred players, more than half were hit in the first five minutes of the game, flying over to the cliff edge to watch and heal their bruises and remove the spots left on my the magic. Al'xen picked off another ten, dodging stones with remarkable turns and dives…the same turns and dives made him so dizzy, he had to hover for a moment to catch his balance.

A rock struck his shoulder, thrown so lightly he barely felt it. He whipped his head around, knowing who had tagged him: Kal, always overly-cautious with his strength.

He grinned broadly. "Not beating me this year, I guess!"

"Oh, you just _wait_," Al'xen told him with a forced straight face. "One day…" He huffed melodramatically and flew over to take a seat next to K'yenae, a half-eagle girl that had been adopted by a family near his house.

Jaro was still in the game: with his slight frame, he presented less of a target. He threw a rock at Tam, who ducked, caught the falling rock, and tossed it over her shoulder back at him.

Grumbling and massaging his forehead, he joined the rest.

Soon, the game was between three remaining people: Kal, Tam, and Xayr'u, who happened to be Tam's twin; except for the fact he was a male, the two were identical.

And identical in thought, for without even so much as a glance to the other, they both began pelting Kal with rocks.

"Hey, no teams!" Jaro complained.

Kal shook his head, laughing. "I'm finally getting some competition!" Still laughing, he broadened the distance between them, moving towards an outcrop of rock. After grabbing a few rocks roughly the size of his palm, he bent down and lifted a boulder a bit bigger than him over his head jokingly.

Xayr'u groaned. "No _way_!"

Kal tossed it into the valley and grabbed more normal rocks. As he bent down to pick them up, he noticed something move at the bottom of the valley. From this high up, it looked to be a line of ants, marching around the lake. But then, ants didn't have hair.

He straightened up, looking to the twins. "D'you see--" A rock fell on the crown of his head, cutting off his question. He glanced up to Tam's triumphant grin.

Everyone began to cheer, though not cruelly: it was a change, Kal being actually beat. He was grinning himself. "Well, I guess that breaks my winning streak!"

Tam returned the smile and grabbed the stones from his arms. "No hard feelings!"

Instead of joining the others to watch the rest, he remained where he was, squinting his eyes. Were those…_people_ down there? _Impossible, no one ventures this deep into our territory! _ His child-like curiosity won him over, and he jumped, falling in a controlled dive to the bottom of the cliff. As he neared, he could see there were definitely thirteen people: in two rows, with six on each side, and there was another in the middle—that one was a woman, he saw as he dropped down. The others appeared to be guards, all men.

_They must be allies of ours, to enter Raven demon territory with so little numbers…perhaps they bring news?_ Kal finally flared his wings, cutting the momentum, and landed carefully in front of the group, with what he hoped was a charming smile. _I hope they understand Kohm'kiiten…_ "Kiu," he greeted them, holding his hands up in a friendly gesture. "Qi Kal—sa?" _Hello. I'm Kal—you?"_

The woman in the middle pushed to the front of the group. He frowned, confused: the look on her face was far from happy. She almost looked…murderous. And she was leveling some metal object at his head. It had a hollow tube connected to a larger piece of metal that she gripped in her hand, her finger curled around another semi-circle of metal.

_What _is_ that? And why in the world is she pointing it at me?_

* * *

**Still that night, a few hours later**

Allie was snapped out of her sleep when she heard someone sit on the bed; it wasn't until her fist connected with unyielding flesh and muscle that she realized it was Kal. "Sorry," she mumbled, rubbing her hand across her eyes. "A bit late, isn't it?" It was hard to make out his face in the dark: he had his illusions still on, so not even the red glow of his eyes showed.

"Keh…" he started, then repeated it in French. "I found…a room. It…" he reached out and touched a hand to her temple. His fingers were shaking.

Allie's eyes closed as her mind was filled with bright fragments of memory: Kal, unscarred, napping; talking to Jessica; laughing with friends; playing a game. Lastly, she saw herself, pointing a pistol at his head.

"What...?" The memories—but they couldn't be that, because none of that had ever happened—ended as Kal dropped his hand.

"You didn't kill me," he assured her. "We were friends, for a while. But after…years after, I saw—no, the room _showed _me—you had died in childbirth…ah!" He shook his head briskly. "A dream. An elaborate spell, made to show possible dreams of things."

"Tell me." She listened to his explanation of the room he had fallen into in the dungeons. "So," she said after he had finished, "that was what would have happened if the Raven demons _hadn't_ been killed?"

He nodded.

"Odd that we would have met up either way" she commented, a little chilled at his mention of her death. "Who's child was I with?" she questioned.

He shrugged in the dark. "I don't know."

"It wasn't…"

"No, no—I wasn't the father," he said with a quick laugh. "A noble, I suspect. But it wasn't _real, _remember—it was just a dream of sorts."

Allie tried to see his expression in the dark. "Don't you wish that had happened? From what I saw, you were so _happy._ And not a scary kind of happy, either."

He yawned widely. "Not at all."

They fell asleep, but couldn't seem to get comfortable: Allie ended up using Kal's chest for a pillow (her pillow ending up on the floor), all the blankets on her and Kal half-falling off the bed, his pillow over his face to block out the sun when it came up.

And that's how Elizabeth found them, hours later.

* * *

"So you see," Allie continued, pointedly glaring at Kal, "it was this one's idea to join up in the opera—I can't sing to save my life."

"You weren't exactly complaining about being the center of attention," he muttered.

Elizabeth held up her hand, motioning for them to stop. "Wait, wait….what?" They were explaining the bits of their story they had left out.

Personally, Elizabeth and Gabriel preferred it in book-format better: at least there, they didn't keep interrupting with each other and arguing points of the story, along with throwing small insults back in forth. They behaved more like two terriers fighting over a rat than a couple in love.

Kal rolled his eyes and flipped his hair in a girlish way. "Honestly, Liz!" he sighed in a high voice, mocking Allie. His sight had been returned to him in a mysterious room—he had explained all of that before the two started their fragmented narration. "Probably not dangerous at all," he'd commented.

Gabriel made a mental note to himself to check out this Room of Dreams before he turned in for bed. He knew his parents set odd traps around the dungeon (not to mention in certain rooms and corridors of the castle) but he had never imagined something like that. And, besides, he was curious about what the Room would show him. Not that he'd so something as foolish as jumping right into the Room…

Elizabeth frowned, looking at Allie. "How can you be the prima donna of the Opera, and not be able to sing?"

"I sing for her," Kal explained. "Our link is strong enough that, if I want to, I can--"

"—talk or sing through her mouth." The voice that came out of Allie's mouth was nearly her own, a little rougher and lower-pitched, but that was barely noticeable.

"That's incredible!" Elizabeth exclaimed, wide-eyed. Her face fell when they both began to laugh. "Wait a minute…I just fell for a trick, didn't I?"

"Both of did, I guess," Gabriel laughed. "Very amusing, Allison, Kal."

They both shrugged. "I couldn't help it," Kal confessed. "She actually just using a powerful illusion spell on her voice…if she were to take it off, you'd here something that sounds like a cross between a cat screaming and nails on a chalkboard."

"But he _still_ insisted that we work in the opera house—stubborn demon."

"Well,_ you _have no good appreciation for music, stubborn Princess—and neither did that violinist," he added with a impish grin, drawing a groan from Allie.

"Don't even _start _on him!"

"I already did, and it would be rude not to explain it to our wonderful host here. You see," he continued, "the manager had a brother in the orchestra—a violinist, with_ no_ talent whatsoever. His playing was just as bad as Allie's singing, and it gave me the _worst _headaches…so I thought it would be appropriate for me to decapitate him with the strings and skewer him with the bow--"

"_Moving on_." Allie interrupted loudly. "The poor man simply died of natural causes."

"_Obviously._ You can't live with your head cut off and a violin bow through your heart. Oh, it was no great loss!"

"_Kiiyen."_

"_Drose."_

Gabriel gestured for them to move on."What about Jessica? You never mentioned what happened to her."

"Oh, we ran into her a week before we sent you the book. She's dead, I guess. I hit her pretty hard," Kal said with a nonchalant shrug. At Elizabeth's shocked expression, he shrugged. "I can say this with all honesty: she started it. Princess, why don't _you_ explain? I out for most of it."

"Fine," she grumbled. "And by the way, you didn't kill her, stupid—just knocked her out for a while. Liz, Gabe, move up a bit—this way's a lot easy than talking. You'll just see everything from my point of view."

They exchanged a brief glance—_hell, why not?—_and let her place a hand at each of their temples.

* * *

**  
**

"Miss? Miss Destra, are you awake?" A stranger was asking her in English—which, oddly enough, she found she could understand.

"Yeah," she muttered, licking her lips. "_Now_ I am." It looked like the tiny woman understood French, to her relief, and switched to that language.

"You must come with me, Mlle. Destra," she insisted, tugging on her wrist gently. Allie hissed through her teeth—the wrist the woman's hand was touching was awfully sore. Yanking it back, she saw the flesh was bruised all around, and there were small cuts around the edges of the bruise. Her eyes strayed to the wall behind her and noted the manacles on the wall calmly. Yesterday's memory came back to her. Someone—their faces in her mind's eye were blurry—had chained her to that wall, and taken a lot of blood from her using a syringe, and given her sedatives, which apparently hadn't worn off yet.

She knew where she was, though—she could remember that much. She was in North America, in the mountains claimed by the Eagle demons. Kal was…where was he, exactly? _ Just go along with this person—maybe she'll tell you something_. "Alright, where are we going?"

"Lord Alexander requested your presence—he wishes to speak with you." From the timid way she spoke and the way her eyes were focused on her boots, Allie gathered she must be Lord Alexander's servant.

"Alright," Allie said serenely, and followed her up out of the room. There wasn't a railing on the steep flight of stairs, so she settled with pressing one hand against the wall; she was dizzy. There were doors positioned at odd intervals, along with long stretches where the stairs ended. There were no windows.

When Allie felt near collapse, the muscles in her legs trembling, the servant stopped and motioned towards the door in front of them. There were no more stairs, so Allie guessed they were at the top of whatever odd building they were in. "Milord, Alison Destra is here," the woman called through the door.

"Send her in, Clarice."

The servant-woman stepped out of the way after opening the door and went back down the stairs without a second glance.

The room was very simple: a cot next to one wall, a writing desk on the other, a small bookshelf at the head of the cot, and a small square table in the centre of the room. When she came in, the man on the cot stood up politely. He had light brown hair and skin, and the one eye that wasn't forced shut by a scar was golden. "Alex," he said, extending a callused hand. "Take a seat—those stairs must have tired you out." His French was passable.

She did as he said and folded her hands in her lap, whatever they had given her still keeping her calmed. _He's very informal for a lord. Hard to believe he's Jessica's brother._ Allie had glimpsed that bit of information from his mind.

"Are you feeling any better?" he asked. "I was worried they had given you to much sedative, but that couldn't be helped. Sorry."

"S'alright. Where's Kal? I remember you kidnapped me and knocked him out with something. "

"See, that's what I need to talk to you about. He's currently being held here--"

"You're going to kill him, aren't you? Good Lord, you never give him a break."

Alex gnawed his lower lip, looking uncomfortable. "Everyone is calling for his death, you see—a few have been…observing you two for a while, and a relationship between you two is…well…"

"So you're going to kill him."

Alex sighed. "I don't have much authority over a nine thousand of my people."

Allie smiled and stood up. "Well, that's just too bad—will you please excuse me?" She ran out the door and magically locked it, then ran down the stairs, forcing herself awake while she ran. There was still a bit of the sedative—a drug she couldn't identify—in her veins, and she burned it away with a simple spell.

It wasn't hard to locate where Kal was being held. Now she was fully awake, she just followed their link, and in minutes was at a door, bigger and more elaborate than the others. It led outside into the bright sunlight, and the courtyard. The grass yard and stone path wasn't contained by any wall—on three sides, there was nothing but the drop-off of the cliff. In the centre of the courtyard, there was a cage and eleven people. Five people stood on either side of the cage with their bows aimed inside it at Kal, while the eleventh stood as still as a statue, holding a pocket watch in her hand. Jessica. Allie glanced behind her and was met with the site of thousands of Eagle demons, standing on the balconies of the building she had came out of. A good deal of them were on the roof, and on the rocky mountainside the building was built into.

_An execution,_ she though with a shiver. Bracing herself, she ran towards the cage, an invisible shield already around her. As she neared, Jessica's eyes widened, and then she looked up to the demons behind Allie. "Time!" she yelled, "for the death of Kalendrakk!"

As the archers pulled their bows back, she saw their tips were dipped in some vile black mixture.

There wasn't time for her to yell—even if there was, the excited cheers of the crowd would have drowned her out. Almost there, she threw all her magic into a shield around Kal as the arches let their arrows fly—when they hit the shield, they were burned into ash. All except one, which found his heart. His eyes widened in more anger than pain, and he threw himself against the door of the cage: it was steel, but it gave way as if it had been kindling. He struck Jessica before she could move, and she fell down with blood coming from her mouth, nose, and ears. Allie had reached him by then, and he picked her up and flew toward the cliff. The archers only had one arrow apiece, so they could only fly after him.

The crowd did the same. Both froze when the two appeared to disappear into thin air.

Allie focused on keeping the illusion of invisibility as Kal dropped into a dive, the ground rushing up to meet them—he landed clumsily, on both knees, looking very gray. "Don't touch it," he snapped when she laid her hand on the arrow shaft.

She swallowed back the vomit that rose in her throat, grimacing. "You'll die if it doesn't come out. It's a wonder you aren't already…"

Kal ripped it out unceremoniously and let it drop beside him. "I die slow."

Allie laid one hand on the wound to stop the blood and to heal it simultaneously. She could barely feel his heartbeat, but at least she'd healed him—he'd recover soon. With a grateful sigh, she drew her hand away and a spurt of blood splashed in her face. "Why isn't it _healing_?" Kal gave no answer—he appeared to have lost consciousness. She tried again with the same results, and was about to continue when it suddenly closed up on its own.

* * *

**  
**

Allie dropped her hands back into her lap. "You see," she continued aloud, "They put something in the poison on the arrows to keep my magic from healing it, because they'd guess I'd try. They didn't know Kal was capable of healing. Kal used all the magic that kept his emotions away to heal himself. And he never put another back up--"

"—so I ended up proclaiming my undying love and devotion for her," he drawled in a sarcastic voice. He lifted her hand up with his own, and showed his palm lacking a burn. "And then, little children, the magic Princess broke the bad demon's curse."

"How?" Elizabeth shook her head, a little dizzy from having the memories in her head. Next to her, Gabriel seemed just as disoriented.

"Easy, I just--"

"Elizabeth!" Everyone's head snapped the doors of the library, where Elizabeth's father was standing, out of breath. He held up the letter in his hand. "Giles…he gave this to me."

Gabriel and Elizabeth gave a start.

"Who's Giles?" Allie asked.

Elizabeth's face drained of all colour. "He…He's my…husband."

* * *

I've been using a bit of Kohm'kiiten, and it keeps slipping my mind to post what it means! Argh!

So here's a key:

Kii (pronounced: kee)- an affirmative--can mean anything from Yes to Sure.

Kiiyen( kee-yen)- Idiot, stupid

Qi (K'yee)-formal pronoun--informal is Keh (kay).

tar'nii (tar-nee)- slang for "runt".

Kaza-sa quiet, you!

Rehniikah (ray-nee-ka) -raven

And pronunciations:

Al'xen Al-zen

K'yenae k'yen-ee

Xayr'u zayr-oo.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: It seems that I keep on procrastinating with writing…sorry about the delay.

**I don't know WHO I am...:** Actually, I'm rather grateful for your reminding me! My memory isn't really all that good, you see….In the previous A/N, I was making fun of myself.

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"

-Mark Twain

* * *

Henri wasn't having the best day. He hadn't slept a wink all night—one of the few cows he had had a breach birth, and died shortly after—and upon going back into his house, managed to trip over his own feet and fall face-first, breaking his nose and getting blood all over the floor he had just washed. And after he finished scrubbing out the blood, he had to start the morning chores…and then there was shopping to attend to. 

Running into Giles on his way back to the farm was no help.

The haughty young man actually had the gall to step in front of Henri's horse, an aging gelding that had been jokingly named Geoff, after his horse-faced father-in-law, many a year ago. Henri was forced to jerk back the reins to avoid running over the boy.

"What in God's name are you doing, boy?" he sighed, calming down the horse. "Do you want to cause an accident?"

Giles flipped his light brown hair out of his face in a gesture Henri found rather feminine. "No…I simply want you to deliver a letter." The letter in question was extended in his hand, the envelope unmarked by any stamps. On it, in a messy copperplate scrawl, was his daughter's name.

"I'm not the postman, Giles," he said carefully. "Why don't you give it to him?"

He smirked. "Because the postman doesn't know where she and that ugly creature of hers are…you, on the other hand…" he trailed off and flapped the letter at Henri. "So why don't you just deliver it? There'll be twenty francs in it for you."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Henri replied as coolly as he could, grateful he didn't stammer.

"Fine, then…thirty francs. Now take the godamned letter!" He dug the right amount of money from his coat pocket and offered it along with the letter. "If you know what's good for you, old man, you'll take it to her and that…thing." He gestured with a jerk of his head in the direction of Henri's farm. "No one will care much if some of a poor farmer's livestock disappeared. Or his house. But see, I'm not that cruel…all I want is for a simple neighborly favor. And I'm paying you in return. So you see, I'm being very generous."

Henri snatched the letter from Giles's hand, doing his best to ignore the money.

Giles flashed a smile, all his teeth looking perfect and white…and rather predatory; the money disappeared back into the coat pocket. "Good man. Give my _wife_," he added, with special emphasis on "wife", "my love."

Henri glared at Giles back when it was turned, wondering why the hell he had wanted Elizabeth to marry such a rude, spoilt boy in the first place.

He urged Geoff to hurry back home, where he dropped his purchases off and then put the gelding in his stall, saddling up a younger horse for the trip to the castle. Geoff was old, and he most likely wouldn't be able to replace him once he died; he couldn't push him too hard, and it wasn't exactly a hop, skip, and a jump to Gabriel's castle.

He arrived a while later at the castle gates, Giles's letter tucked in an inner pocket of his worn old jacket. Cursing the overgrown curtain of roses that obscured most of the door—roses were no longer even in season!—he dismounted his horse to shove them aside (earning a few nasty pricks), and then lead the horse inside the courtyard, which also was full of blooming roses. After he put the horse in the stables, not neglecting to pat Star on the head as he passed her, he hurried into the castle and up the steps, hoping he would be able to find his daughter in the maze-like castle.

It turned out he didn't have to. "Bonjour, Elizabeth's dad!" one of the green-haired faery-girls from yesterday chirped, appearing in front of him. "Can I help you with something? Are you hungry? Thirsty? Do you--"

"Could you show me to where ever my daughter is?" He asked, willing his heart to calm down. "Please?"

"No problem! She in the library with Fluffy and two friends!"

Before Henri could even so much as raise an eyebrow to the "Fluffy" nickname (it obviously was Gabriel's), she grabbed him by the arm and he had a peculiar sense of falling. It was over in a second, and he was staring at the library doors.

"Merci," he said with a curt bow to the faery-girl. She beamed and disappeared before his eyes—he would never get used to that little trick.

Trying to catch his breath—the little disappearing—re-appearing trick had left him a bit breathless—he opened the doors. "Elizabeth!" he called in, unintentionally interrupting her friend—Allie, her name was. He held up the unpocketed letter in his hand as he crossed the room. "Giles gave this to me." He noted the startled look on both her and Gabriel's face, and the look of confusion on Allie and her odd companion Kal.

"Who's Giles?" Allie asked. Henri made to answer, but Elizabeth beat him to it, her face pale.

"He…He's my…husband."

* * *

Kal raised an eyebrow as Elizabeth ripped her letter open. "Husband? I've heard of men having more than one wife, but not vice-versa." 

"I can't believe we forgot about that," Gabriel groaned, smacking his forehead with his palm. "Dear God in heaven…Henri, please sit," he said to Elizabeth's father, waving at a spare chair. "Elizabeth was in an arranged marriage before we met," he explained to Kal and Allie as Elizabeth read the letter.

"And you ran away and fell in love with Gabriel?" Allie squealed. "How romantic!" Elizabeth glance up from the letter, the quickly looked back down.

Gabriel coughed. "Um…not quite. We haven't told you?"

Kal shook his head. "Not that I remember."

"Well, then what happened?" Allie persisted. "Did you rescue her from some mortal peril? Come on, what _happened_?"

Elizabeth re-folded the letter, letting it drop onto her lap. "Giles sent me as a ransom for his life, or so he thought."

Kal had to force himself not to laugh at the expression on Allie's face. Still, his hopeless air-headed Princess decided to find something romantic about it.

"And you realized that it was all a big misunderstanding, you became friends, and _then _you fell in love!"

"Pretty much." Elizabeth fiddled with the letter. "Moving back to this…it's nothing."

"What? May I see it?" Gabriel unfolded the letter and scanned over it.

"It's just babble, about_ himself, _that shallow-minded cad." Elizabeth frowned. "Not even a thing about me, except at the end."

"I'll be seeing you soon, my dear wife'," Gabriel quoted dryly. "Not likely."

Elizabeth patted him on the arm and turned to her father. "How soon can we work out a divorce?"

Henri looked startled, as if he had been drifting. "Hmm? Oh, as soon as we can arrange it. Remember, we'll need his consent…and perhaps it would be best to not wear your engagement ring while we're going through it," He pointed to the ring Gabriel had proposed to her with, "and have the wedding ring Giles gave you."

"Oh…that." Elizabeth flushed and fiddled with an errant lock of hair. "Ahem. Well…"

"You tossed it over the balcony," Kal supplied for her. "A week after coming here." Allie nudged him in the ribs.

"Don't go around reading people's minds like that! It's very rude."

"_You_ do it, your Highness."

"Hmph."

Gabriel tossed the letter onto the table. "Why did he give you a letter to bring us if it had nothing significant in it?"

* * *

**  
**

"Shh! Louis, don't talk so loud!"

"Damnit Philippe! Just give me the reins!" Frustrated, he snatched Philippe's horse's reigns away and tied the horse up next to his own. "Giles said to go on foot from here on, the horses will make too much noise!"

Philippe grumbled and started up on the barely-visible path, the leaves trampled from Henri's horse. "I still think we're crazy to follow that old man into these woods. They're haunted, you know." Even though he was sixteen—they both were—he still believed old wives' tales like that.

"You think everything's haunted," Louis pointed out. "Jumping at your own shadow…you'll probably wet yourself once we get inside." He pointed at the wall of the castle, now only a few minutes away.

"I will_ not_!" Dropping his hand to the pistol on his belt, he started up the path, cutting around Louis. "_I'll_ kill the monster—you can just get that annoying girl."

"Not a chance! _I'm_ gonna kill it!" Pulling his own pistol out, he raced Philippe to the castle door, where they had to go in single file, the roses scratching at their faces. The doors to the castle were slightly ajar, and they slipped in with making no noise at all.

Well, no noise that a human could hear. And in a castle where there were four non-humans, that didn't really help.

Not even a minute upon entering the castle, their target appeared at the head of the staircase in front of them. The monster they had been paid to kill was exactly as Giles had described him, and they both leveled their pistols, both eager to be the one whose bullet brought it down. At the sight of the guns, its expression quickly changed from one of mild surprise to realization; as the pistols fired, it ducked with unnatural speed, the bullets passing harmlessly above it and into the expensive wall behind. Louis and Philippe heard rapidly approaching footsteps, and hurried to finish it off before there was interference.

Before they could fire again, it had run down the stairs and snatched the pistols out of their hands. "_Children_--such as yourselves--shouldn't be allowed such dangerous toys," it said coolly, demonic eyes flashing. It tucked the pistols into a pocket in its pants and grabbed their hands, both sets of wrists fitting easily in one hand. The claws quickly dissuaded Louis and Philippe from struggling. "Who are you?"

Philippe was the first to speak, babbling. "Please don't kill us! We were only acting on orders!"

It narrowed those red-and-black eyes at them. "You come into my home and attempt to murder me? On mere _orders_?" It looked from one to the other, then back to Philippe, who had gone deathly pale. "I won't kill in cold blood—especially not two little children like you—so stop your quivering. Who sent you?"

The first of the group arrived, practically flying down the stairs. The two boys immediately recognized her as Elizabeth, who had once been the town's bookworm—God knows why Giles was so anxious to have her back. She was pretty, yes, but why would he want a girl who spent her day _reading_, of all things?

"Are you alright?" Not a glance to them—she was staring right at the monster. "We heard gunshots, and--"

"I'm fine, ange," he replied, voice softening. She let out a sigh of relief and then seemed to notice the two.

"Who are they?"

"Just what I was wondering."

They mumbled their names. "We were supposed to get you," Philippe told her. "We got paid extra to get rid of the mon--"

"His name is Gabriel," she snapped. "Watch your mouths. And who told you to come and get me? It was that fop, wasn't it? Giles told you to follow my father to the castle, I'm guessing, after he sent him with that letter."

They nodded. "You caught on fast," Louis muttered. He glanced over his shoulder, as if measuring the distance between him and the door.

"I can't blame you for running away from him," Allie said as she came down the stairs, Kal in tow. "What a bastard." When she approached them, she tugged the guns out of the pockets of Gabriel's pants. "Not a very smart idea, _mon amie_—unless, of course, you _want_ to be a eunuch. Then, by all means, stick a pair of loaded guns in your pocket."

"We've seen it happen. _Not _a pretty sight, as Allie can testify," Kal added. "I can only remember the screams of agony, being blind at the time." He turned his attention to Louis and Philippe. "What about you two? Would you think being castrated would be good punishment for you?"

They both went very pale this time. "Kal, you_ are_ joking?" Gabriel asked, frowning.

He held up his hands, grinning. "It's a suggestion—they _did _try to kill you. If it was _me_ in your place...well, they wouldn't have to worry about that, because they'd already be decapitated. Be happy he's so softhearted," he added to the boys.

Gabriel turned his attention back to Louis and Philippe. "Giles paid you to kill me and kidnap Elizabeth, correct?"

"Yes," Louis muttered.

Gabriel bent in half from his waist, until he was eye-level with them. "I would suggest you two go back to the village. If you come across M. Giles, tell him if he'd like to try and settle this, he can do it face-to-face. _Unarmed_. Now, Kal wasn't lying—I_ am _very softhearted—but my temper gets short once I'm fired on. So if I were you two, I wouldn't come back here. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes!" Philippe stammered, and was the first to reach the door once Gabriel released their hands. Louis stayed a second longer, rubbing his wrist and staring at Elizabeth. "It'd save us a lot of trouble if you just came with us."

She shook her head, drawing closer to Gabriel. "Just _leave_."

He ran after Philippe.

* * *

**  
**

"Come in." Allie sheathed the sword she had been sharpening, placed its whetstone in a little leather bag, and put both in her weapons-bag.

Elizabeth, having opened the door, lingered in the frame. "You're not busy, are you?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I like a bit of quiet now and then, but now I'm going out of my mind with it. Of_ course_ I'm not busy!" she added. "What is it?"

"I…was wondering about those magic lessons you said you'd give. You know the illusion stuff. Could we start…?"

"Sure, take a seat." Allie scooted over to one side of the bed, drawing her legs up under her. "Alright," she said when Elizabeth had sat down. "Most of illusion magic is all about willpower. That, and a really vivid imagination…I'm sure you won't have any trouble with that part. The strength of the illusion depends on those tow things, and the strength of the caster—you follow?"

"Yes—it seems pretty simple to me."

"It is." She held out one hand palm up and a small colored orb of light appeared, hovering. "Why don't you try something easy like this to start?"

Elizabeth held up her own hand and stared at the air above it, frowning in concentration. After a moment, the air began to color a faint pinkish color. Allie made to congratulate her, but stopped when she saw the line of the orb become more distinct, and harden. Elizabeth frowned at the small glass ball resting in her hand.

"What…"

"Your magic must have gotten away from you," Allie explained. "It looks like a little like blown glass, doesn't it—ow!" She had reached over to pick it up, and snatched her hand back, blowing on her fingers. While Elizabeth's hand was unmarked, Allie's blistered. "It's _hot_!"

Elizabeth paid no attention—all of that was directed on the little ball. Something looked like it was moving inside…the shadow of a person?

Allie, having healed her hand, squinted. "It almost looks like there's a picture in there."

Elizabeth could almost make out the inside when it crumbled to dust, which then disappeared. "_That_ was successful."

"Well, it was only the first time. Try again." _Yes,_ she thought,_ but I never made a seeing-orb on my first try...or at all. I wonder if she knows what she's capable of..._

* * *

**  
**

Back at the village, Giles was fuming. It was the second time that thing—_Gabriel_—had prevented him from taking back what was his.

He was seriously regretting stepping into that castle the year before.

"He wants to settle this face to face, eh?" he muttered to himself, furiously pacing the parlor of his house, stopping every so often to smooth down his hair. "He'll get his wish. No weapons." None of his own, anyways. He could always hire someone else to follow behind him…one shot to the head, or to the heart. That was all it would take to finish the thing off, and then he would have his wife once again.

He had briefly considered remarrying, and then had dropped the idea—he was still legally married to Elizabeth, after all. He could divorce her, once her pet monster "Gabriel" was out of the picture. If he decided to keep her round the house, that would be fine. She _was _very pleasing to the eyes. And, if he did end up growing tired of her, he could always divorce her then and remarry. Hell, he was young, and attractive.

'Back to the monster," he said aloud to the empty room. _Who can I hire to kill it? Not those two boys again, they failed miserably…_

The noise outside the house brought him out of his thoughts. "Doctor, doctor!" someone was yelling. "We need a doctor!"

Curious, he stepped outside. There wasn't too large a crowd yet, so his view was clear. A farmer—he lived on the farthest borders of the village, and was somewhat of a hermit, with his children grown and his wife dead—stood in the middle of the road, a vegetable cart next to him. On a pile of old blankets was another man, a stranger. He was badly hurt, but appeared to be breathing. His face was young—he could hardly be older than Giles himself. As for his hair color, it was hard to tell—there was too much blood in it. He could have been French, or English, or Dutch, or even American. His face was cut up pretty bad, and swollen besides.

"Doctor!" The farmer went on yelling.

"Down that street, five doors to the left!" a woman yelled from inside her house. "And stop your yelling!"

The farmer went as she directed, pulling the injured man in the vegetable cart. Giles could see his lips moving—the wounded one's—and saw some of his teeth had been knocked out. They pasted near him while they turned, and he just barely heard what he was whispering.

"Marie…?"

* * *

In Soviet Russia, Review Button clicks on YOU! 

Why not return the favor?


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: A friend of mine asked me to spam as many pages with the link to her story….so here it is!

http://greenlint. a short story, and 'tis very awesome.

Haven Linn: The button thing spawned from a quote on Family Guy, being "In Soviet Russia, computer turns on YOU!" Me and my friend were bored one day, and came up with a whole bunch of "In Soviet Russia"'s.

* * *

The doctor had very little hope for the man's recovery—it would have been none, but, miraculously, the man was moving (trying to) and talking, almost constantly. He made the man as comfortable as he could, splint the bones, bandaging the wounds, and giving him a small measure of morphine. 

He suspected if the man did live, it would be as a cripple.

"The pub," the man now muttered, staring at the ceiling. His eyes were an amazing color, a hazel so light it almost seemed gold.

The doctor, a fairly young man (he was in his mid-thirties) named Herbert Folliot, sighed inwardly. He had been watching him and listening to him for an hour now, watching for signs of either death or recovery. He (the man) had been muttering to himself. It seemed to Folliot that he was hallucinating—and, given his condition, it wasn't surprising. Folliot had tried getting a name out of the man earlier, and had been ignored.

"What about the pub?" he asked.

His golden eyes rolled over to him for the first time. "I was there last, wasn't I? The same place where I used to drink with Perren."

Folliot nodded for him to continue.

The man went back to staring at the ceiling, smiling faintly. "He had that cheap wine he always drank. How he could swallow that vile swill….He could afford much better, you know, I always told him. Perren, though…'Nothin' wrong with this brew, Jason—save the extra money for a prostitute.'" He glanced at Folliot. "I never knew if he was joking or not. As far as I know, he had a wife and four children, and never stepped into a brothel in his life. He left them a bit more than a fortune when he died….what was it, a year later? It was rainy at his burial, I remember. It always rains on those occasions, haven't you noticed? My Marie came with me. He introduced us two. Thought we would make a good match…have I told you that yet? About my Marie?"

"No, I don't believe you have. Is that your name? Jason?"

"I thought I told you that. Yes, it's Jason, Jason Vayle. My mother's maiden name. And your name is M. Herbert Cullen Folliot, named for your father and then your grandfather."

_How did he—I never told him that!_ "How did you know that?"

"Oh, I read your mind." He smiled jokingly. "Cullen. My aunt had a husband named Cullen. Odd, how you remember those things. Marie always used to remark about that, about my memory. Oh, yes, I was about to tell you about my Marie! Shall I? You are the only doctor in the village, aren't you busy?"

"No, by all means, continue." _How,_ he thought, _can this complete stranger possibly know that I'm the only doctor in the village? And he told me my first and middle name—there's no way he could know those things…maybe he had visited here? _"I am not busy."_ Besides, doesn't the dying always tell their life's story on their deathbed? But he looks so…lively, in a sense, so animated. His voice sounds lively, anyway._ "Please."

Jason smiled at the ceiling, golden eyes crinkling at the corners. "It began at the bar, or, rather, after it…Perren was telling me about this woman he had met…

* * *

**  
**

"'Marie, I think her name was,' he said. 'She seems like your prefect match, Jason my friend.'

"'What makes you think that?' I asked. I was tired that day—it was very hot, and heat always makes me tired.

"'Well…she's…' He waved a hand at me. 'Don't ask me so many questions after getting' me drunk.'

"'That was one question,' I said, but I was grinning. I grin at damn near anything, after a drink or two.

"'You should meet her for yourself,' he said. Even drunk, he had that look in his eyes he got when he was scheming. He was a great evil schemer. I myself was never very good at scheming…I always get distracted by one thing or another, forget something…and I can't seem to make a decision without deciding to change it! Now where was I? Oh, Perren scheming. Yes. Well, I was a bachelor—had been for ten years, ever since Adrienne and I divorced—and so I agreed. Adrienne? She's not really all that significant. I was only married to her for five years, and we both made the decision; she was quite insane, you see, and had lapses where she thought she was a witch named Alaida, and mumbled in barely coherent Gaelic, which I barely understood in the first place. Alaida hated me. Anyways, I didn't mean to go off on a tangent.

"Perren was busy at the time. He was a glassblower; he chose a mortal profession, as some of us do. For that reason, we departed a week after his mentioning Marie. I could have gone myself, but I hadn't been to the town before—it was a little town in Romania—and so we left as soon as he was able to. It would have taken us quite some time if we had gone the mortal way, as Perren wanted to, but I managed to convince him not to. As such, we arrived within a matter of hours—with a few stops here and there for me to get a sense of direction. All that traveling makes me dizzy.

"We arrived in town when it was mid afternoon, wearing clothes a little out of date, but otherwise normal. It could have mattered less, for the town we had come to was a century—at _least!_—behind than the rest of Europe. A very old-fashioned and quaint little town, it was. As for hats, Perren's hair, which was a deep auburn color, never attracted attention. And his eyes were a normal black. Perren looked very normal, never had to bother with such disguises—even his _ears _were human! As for me…'That silver hair on a young man like you is very becoming!' says most who are young enough to be my grandchildren. Oh, I just smile and continue, my hair covering my ears and my eyes disguised a plain brown. I do hate to disguise my hair; it's my greatest vanity, my hair.

"Well now, I'm babbling again, aren't I? You give me such odd looks whenever I mention Perren looking human, or my way of traveling! You wouldn't mind waiting until I'm finished, would you Herbert? Good man, I thought not. Now, I was at the little town, correct? Thought so. Even though it was old fashioned, I loved it on sight. It reminds me of when I was a little child, you see.

"'Are you sure she's even here?' I asked. I was a little skeptical, you see, because Perren, rest his soul, had a tendency to forget things like that. But he just grinned and motioned for me to follow him.

"'This way, Jason,' he said, leading me along the back streets of the little town. 'Streets' is stretching is a bit—they were dirt roads, and, since it had rained recently, the mud was up to our ankles. At the end of that was an old house, a little run-down, very normal. He knocked on the door, and she opened it after a moment.

"That was the first time I saw her, Marie. Oh, you cannot imagine how breathtakingly beautiful she was! She wore her hair done up in a bun at the base of her neck, then, like all the other women. Only, Marie let two locks fall free, just framing her face. The black in it made her skin seem all the more pale, and the red in it brought out her eyes and her lips. So, so beautiful…

"I remember the dress she was wearing was very old and worn, made of some cheap gray shapeless material with a yellowed white apron tied around the middle. There was a shawl tied around her shoulders, a faded black thing made of wool. She drew it tighter around her shoulders as she glanced from Perren to me. And then her face broke into a smile—she had perfect teeth, a rare thing in a poor town like that—and said "It seems I have company!" She stepped away from the doorframe. 'Please, come in—I was just putting a pot of tea on. Perren, it's lovely to see you again! Just who is this handsome friend of yours, may I ask? Not married, I hope!' she joked, laughing. Just that laughter alone would be enough to completely spellbind even a pious man like you, Herbert!

"All the introductions were made, and we ended up dining in her small, dingy kitchen. Oh, Marie was quite wealthy; her family owned a domain even bigger than mine—hidden deep in the Carpathian mountains—but she found humans so amusing, that she chose to live among them as if she were one of their own. She put on the front of a seamstress (not that she had to pretend at that, she was quite good) and covered up her hair and disguised her eyes whenever she went out. She was wonderful at illusions.

"One thing led to another, and we ended up being engaged in a year. Perren was still alive to see at least that, and he gave us his blessings—he was ill even then, though.

"She moved into my home, my underground castle, and well…that brings us to present day! The wedding will be the month after next."

* * *

Jason sighed and settled back on the pillow. "Herbert, my throat is very dry—you don't happen to have a spare glass of water, do you? Ah, merci—you are a lifesaver. Quite literally." He couldn't lift the glass himself, so Folliot held it to his mouth so he could drink it in sips, his mind occupied while he did. 

Was he to understand that this man, Jason Vayle, wasn't even human? All the things he spoke of…especially the "disguising" he claimed he and Marie did to their eyes….He couldn't believe such tales, of course, especially not from a man suffering of numerous concussions and blood loss…_But how did he know my full name? I don't even give out my middle name! My signature is just H. Folliot!_

Jason smiled. "Don't stress yourself, _mon petite—_I can't have the only doctor in this charming village keeling over, now."

He raised an eyebrow. "'Mon petite'? Excuse me, Monsieur, but I have at _least_ five year's seniority to you. How old are you? Twenty-nine? Thirty?"

He frowned a moment. "Let's see…I was born in the winter of 1539, and now it's the autumn of 1859. You do the math—my head aches."

Folliot had always excelled at math, and he did so quickly. "But," he scoffed, "You can't possibly be three hundred and twenty years old. Even if it_ was_ 1859--"

"What do you mean, 'if it was'?" Jason exclaimed. "It's October 15th, 1859! Are you sure you haven't been hitting the absinthe bottle a little too hard, Herbert?"

_He must be delirious, that's it. It explains all the…inexplicable things, and the mess-up with the date. By rights, he should have most of his _body_ in his grave, never mind a foot! _ "I'm sorry, but it's the 26th of October, not the 15th. And it's 1874, not 1859."

"How…how is that possible? It can't…I just looked at the calendar the other day! And Marie and I are to be married the month after next, on the fifteenth of December—December _'59._" Jason sat bolt upright, a thing he should have been completely incapable of doing, and lifted a hand to the wall to steady himself. "I…I…I have to go home to Marie! I….she…" He swooned and fell back onto the bed, eyes rolling back into his head. He had passed out.

Herbert went about changing Jason's bandaging, only to discover the numerous gouges were already scabbing over; the bones themselves appeared to have already healed.

"Impossible…"

* * *

Kal sat on the windowsill of his and Allie's room, staring out at the castle grounds and the forest beyond that. The sky was thick with rain clouds; it would soon storm. He could smell it on the wind. A small black figure was floating below the clouds, gradually growing larger. Kal had been watching it come for more than fifteen minutes, and grinned when it finally reached him. 

"Enjoy your vacation, mon ami?" He scooted over on the ledge so the raven could land. "Miss us, did you?"

_As if it's possible to miss complete and utter chaos!_ Death spread out a wing and began preening it. In addition to the whit feather on his head, there were some on his neck, his tail, and even starting to show in his wings feathers. He was old, older than any natural raven should be. One day, he would loose all his glossy ebony feathers, becoming something of an albino. _I had a well-earned, quite break._

"I don't doubt it." He leaned against the window frame, smiling at his old acquaintance. "I can see now, you know."

_Really? Did Allison fix your eyes?_

"No…it's a bit of a long story. Ask Allie later on, if you want. So, where did you go?"

Death ruffled his feathers, looking sideways at Kal. _Tactful as usual, I see. And, if you must now, I went back to America—to the forest I was born in, you know. I met my great-great-grandniece, some of my other distant relatives, and I slept a lot. _ He twisted his head around to scan the room. _Where's Allison? In her room?_

"She's having lunch with Elizabeth and Gabriel. And, for future reference," he added, "this _is_ her room."

_Ah, I should have guessed from all the hairbrushes and ribbons at the vanity table. Lurking in her window now, are you?_

He raised an eyebrow at Death. "It's my room too, you know."

_Your--it's—_what? he sputtered. _I leave for two weeks, and when I come back, you're _sharing a bed?_ Oh dear God in Heaven! You---she---if Jessica found out--!!!!_

Kal flicked Death's head. "Don't have a heart attack, eh? Jessica has no way of knowing. What does she have to worry about, anyway? A little baby Kal?"

Death made a coughing noise and averted his eyes. _No sense of propriety either, it seems. Why fate has cursed me with this, I have no idea._

"Stop your grumbling," Kal snapped. "Our clothes stay _on…_Father Simon. It's really none of your business anyway, is it now?"

_No_, he muttered. _But…you won't…you're not possibly considering starting a family, are you? With children?_

"Opposed to having a family without children?" he asked sarcastically. He pushed his bangs of his forehead staring at the sky. "Why don't you go and pester Allie for a while? I think I'll fly around."

_Excellent idea. It'll be interesting, navigating this gigantic castle all by myself, getting lost in the rooms and hallways and collapsing of exhaustion. Never mind I've barely had time to recuperate from my journey…_

"West wing, last door on the left."

_Thank you._

Kal made no move to get up from his spot after Death had left. "'A family with children', eh?"

_Oh, I wish…_

* * *

Elizabeth snagged the cloak as Gabriel reached for it. "Don't tell me you are actually going to the village!" 

He sighed. "Mon ange, this thing really should be settled immediately, before he manages to gather an angry mob and send _them_ to the castle."

"But what if he…"

He tugged it out of her hands and fastened it around his shoulders. "I promise, nothing like that will happen."

She crossed her arms and stared at him. "And what happened last time you said that, Gabriel Noirmort?"

He tried to hide his wince by coughing. "Ah…"

"Liz is right, you know," Allie chimed in, standing in the doorframe. "Giles has tried to kill you before. In my experience, it's best to stay away from people who've done that."

"You never did learn then, did you Princess?" Kal asked, appearing behind her and slipping an arm around her shoulders.

"Oh, quiet you."

"Why don't you just illusion him?" Kal suggested.

"Don't tell me you actually think he should go!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "Giles has no sense of honor! He'd shoot him in the back!"

Kal shrugged. "It seems like the logical thing to do. After all, you do have to divorce him to marry 'Fluffy' here, and if the fop's always trying to kidnap you…Here's an idea, why don't I just kill him? Then you'll be a widow."

Gabriel shook his head. "No violence. But if one of you could do that spell on me…"

Allie flicked her hand at him. "Done."

He bowed. "Merci—now if I could have a moment alone with Elizabeth?"

"We're gone," she called over her shoulder, steering Kal away.

Gabriel sat down on a nearby chair, making him eye-level with Elizabeth. "I told those boys that I would settle this face-to-face with Giles, and they've undoubtedly relayed the message. I just want to get this over with as soon as we can. I want our wedding to go as planned…I want you to be happy, mon ange."

"Then you better come back without a single scratch on you, Gabriel." She unhooked the necklace Allie and Kal had given her, with the amethyst pendant—for protection, they had said—and fastened it around Gabriel's neck. "Or else I might seriously consider Kal's offer."


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Seems that fanfiction messed up the link I posted.

www. greenlint. deviantart. com

Sorry this chapter's so late--school's keeping me busy.

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."

-Irvin S. Cobb

* * *

Gabriel earned more than one odd look upon arriving at the village. They were the curious looks that all abnormally tall people and strangers got, and those he could deal with. He kept to one side of the road and stared at the ground, mostly, trying to find Giles's house by scent alone. He looked human, but beneath the illusion, his nose was as keen as ever, and, after some trial and error, followed Giles's scent to the right house; the largest in the village.

He knocked on the door and waited, fiddling with his gloves. When the door opened, it was a servant.

"May I help you, Monsieur?" she asked carefully, craning her neck. She was a small creature, barely five feet.

"Is this the residence of M. Giles?" he asked. He had no knowledge of Giles's surname—Elizabeth had never told him.

She nodded. "He's not home, though. Went down the street to the doctor's, I think. Would you like to wait inside for him?"

"That's quite alright. The doctor's is over there, correct?"

"Yes."

"Merci." He bowed shortly and went off in that direction—he should have been able to follow the smell there in the first place.

The smell of blood was very strong, even outside the doctor's. And, oddly enough, it smelt familiar, though Gabriel couldn't place it. _I wonder if he's been mortally injured,_ he thought as he knocked on the door. _That would be such a pity._

"Yes?" The man Gabriel assumed was the doctor frowned up at him. "Herbert Folliot—I'm sorry, but I'm rather busy at the--" a man Gabriel recognized immediately as Giles pushed rather rudely passed him, holding a small bottle in one hand. Giles walked passed him without even looking up. Gabriel caught a faint whiff of chloroform from the bottle.

"—at the moment," he finished. "But, perhaps you could come back some other time." He was about to close the door when a man, leaning heavily on a cane, appeared behind him. He was dressed in an old nightshirt and appeared to have been in a serious accident, though all that remained were scars. He was very pale.

He was Jason.

"Hello," he said pleasantly.

Gabriel clenched his hands into fists. "Jason," he said shortly.

"You know my name?" Confusion crossed his scarred face. "How strange. I don't believe we've met before; I would have remembered a gentleman as tall as you."

"You--!" Gabriel snatched him forward by the neck. "How dare you pretend---after all you've done--!"

Folliot grabbed a rifle from above the doorframe, and cocked it. "Let go of him."

"I honestly don't know you. Perhaps you're confusing me with someone else…I have a great-niece who bares a startling resemblance…minus her chest and hips, of course. I hope you aren't confusing me with a woman."

Gabriel glanced at Folliot. "Put that down." He relaxed his hand and Jason hobbled back, rubbing his throat.

Folliot lowered the rifle, but didn't set it down. "If you're going to come in and start harassing my patients, I'll have to ask you to leave."

He didn't move. "You're not pretending," he sighed; it was more of a statement than a question. "You don't remember what you did."

He shrugged. "No. Are you a nobleman? You have expensive clothes. What's your family name?"

"Noirmort."

Jason hummed, rubbing his chin. "Noirmort…? Was your father Marius, by any chance?"

"That was my great-great-grandfather. My father was Claude Noirmort." The name made Folliot start. He turned to the doctor. "You've heard of him?"

"The bastard kicked my family off their land."

Gabriel wasn't sure there was a way to answer a remark like that. "Oh."

"Claude? I remember him as a young man. Haven't seen him in many a year, though." Jason limped over to a chair and sat down heavily. It could have been a trick of the light, but the scars seemed to be growing fainter, smoother. "He has twin girls, and a little son, doesn't he?" He raised an eyebrow at Gabriel. "You have Noirmort blood in you, no doubt, but you can't possibly be _that _little pansy."

Gabriel made an odd sound in his throat, and realized he was trying to growl; it didn't work in the illusioned human body, apparently. _Act normal, Gabriel—what are you going to do next, bare your teeth?_ "You're pushing your luck, _Lord_ Jason. Just where did you disappear to, after Paris? And, more importantly, why did you come crawling back?"

"Paris? I did go to Paris, yes, last week. Marie pestered me into going. To pick up a type of bread she was fond of, I believe…and some of that jam."

"Marie?" Gabriel echoed. "Jason, you do remember she's dead, don't you? You killed her, while trying to kill Elizabeth."

"Dead? Marie?" His face hardened. "Some nerve you have there, Noirmort, first storming in and choking me, and then telling me my fiancée, who I know for a fact is at my house, is _dead._ I don't know who you are—some bastard son of Claude's, perhaps. I'm not feeling very well. What kind of person are you to accuse an injured man?"

"You're no man."

"And by the magic around you, I'd say neither are you!"

"Thanks to _you_!"

"Get out!" Folliot shouted above them, brandishing the rifle. "I don't care if you're a noble's son, but I won't have you distressing a patient of mine."

"As your wish, Monsieur," Gabriel said, bowing stiffly. "It is your choice to keep a madman beneath your roof." He left quickly, and leaned against the tree outside for a moment, breathing to cool air and trying to get a hand on his temper. It was a chore, considering all Jason had done in the past. _Either he truly remembered none of it, or he is a skillful liar, which he is. He was able to convince me that Elizabeth was dead, after all. Where did the scars come from? Is it possible he got in an accident and hit his head? Amnesia's not uncommon. There scars appeared old, but, then, demons heal fast. If he remembers nothing, then is he of no harm? What should I do about him?_

Gnawing his lower lip, he walked back to the main street. He couldn't see anything that could be done now, except to tell Elizabeth and the others. First, though, he still had to find Giles.

* * *

**  
**

Giles glanced over his shoulder. There was a man following him for a while now. From what he'd heard from inside the doctor's house, this handsome aristocrat was actually the Gabriel creature. He wasn't sure how that could work, but he guessed that it could have disguised itself by some means. It made sense: why else would Elizabeth choose Gabriel over him?

He slipped his hand inside his coat and, using the fabric as a shield, soaked his handkerchief with the chloroform he had bought from Folliot. He put both back in the pocket, next to his pistol. The chloroform was a last resort, in case the pistol ran out of bullets (he wasn't the best shot) or he was unarmed. He had discarded the idea of an assassin; it would be a waste of money, should he turn out like Louis and Philippe. He couldn't trust any one but himself to do the job.

He continued down the street to the outskirts of town, to the forest. There, he stayed to the path until he reached a clearing, a good way away from town. Knowing Gabriel had followed him he stopped and turned around.

"You wanted to settle this?" he asked, holding his empty hands up. "We can do that now, since you've gone to the trouble of coming all the way here. I'm unarmed."

"As am I." Gabriel stood casually, he arms dangling at his sides.

"You switch from human to monster at times, I guess."

"In a way. Elizabeth wishes for a divorce."

He laughed shortly. "Getting straight to the point, eh? A divorce? I guessed as much. Don't tell me: you tricked her into falling madly in love with you, and now you're getting married."

The smallest bit of loathing flickered across his face. "That's none of your business. A divorce, M. Giles. You can go about that voluntarily, can you not? If you have any qualms about it, I could assist you."

"No, of course not. I've already gotten bored with the idea of having that crazy woman for my wife. As a matter of fact, I have the papers all ready, in my pocket." Keeping his face blank, he reached inside his jacket, whipped out the pistol, and fired.

His shot might have actually hit the intended target, if he hadn't been expecting it. Gabriel jerked to the side, and the bullet only grazed his cheekbone. Before Giles could fire any more shots, he disappeared into the forest.

"Damn!" he cursed. _Again, he escaped! How many times have I tried and failed to kill that bastard?_

_Luck willing, next time I'll get him._

* * *

**  
**

"Forget," Jason repeated, lightly tapping Folliot's forehead with his finger. "My relatives picked me up and brought me home for better medical attention. Forget I walked out of here."

"That's right; you left with your relatives."

Jason smiled. "Very good, Herbert—au revoir." He strode out the door, still wearing the nightshirt he had been clothed in.

He had been brought in as a mangled broken body, resembling carcass more than a man; now all that remained were the shadows of scars and a barely noticeable limp. AS he continued—behind the houses, of course—even those began to fade away. After he reached the forest, he stripped off the nightshirt and tossed it into the bushes. His skin broke out into gooseflesh in the cool autumn wind. He quickly teleported a change of his clothes from his home, and slipped into the plain black pants, soft leather boots, and the black robe he wore in place of a shirt, as was his clan's tradition, The robe was a cross between a coat with no openings in the front or back, and a baggy shirt. It hung down shapelessly to his ankles, and the sleeves weren't fitted. His skeletal frame disappeared completely under it. Within this garment, there were dozens of pockets, that at the moment were empty, but his money or any of his small possessions could fit into them if he chose to carry them around.

A smile crossed his elegant, feline face as his continued through the wood. He would return home in due time; first, he wanted to stretch his legs while he waited for his body to completely heal. He could, of course, heal himself with a spell, but he found that used up a good deal of his reserve of magical energy. It wasn't necessary—he was half-demon and half faery (a secret he guarded closely), and with the combination of those two bloodlines, he healed very quickly. A part of it was will-power; that was why he suspected he hadn't healed within hours of his accident.

The accident. His mind was still blank on that. He knew they weren't inflicted by another person—they _definitely _weren't self-inflicted—and a good few of his fingernails had been blown off, which pointed to a fall_. So I probably got very drunk and fell off a cliff or something,_ he thought. _Or maybe I was pushed. Either way, I've a bit of amnesia, and I'm probably hallucinating a bit. It's obviously 1859, not '74—I can't have slept for fourteen years. Possible for a vampire, yes, but my internal clock wakes me up at seven o'clock, everyday. Better not to think about it—it'll come back to me in due time. AS for that Noirmort brat, he was probably born on the wrong side of the sheets and got some idiotic notion in his head about me, Maybe Claude planted it in his pretty noble's head; Claude was never a friend._

Jason sat down on a fallen tree and ran a hand down his bad leg: nothing wrong with it now that he could sense. The itching of his feeling skin had nearly subsided. Now, he could go home.

He was ready to teleport away when a human stomped out of the trees to his right, mumbling angrily to himself.

* * *

**  
**

Gabriel touched his face and winced. There was blood on his fingers when he lowered his hand, but not a lot: it had already begun to heal. It didn't even hurt that much, especially when compared to past wounds. A little scratch like this was a pinprick when compared to whip lashes.

_Still…that was _close._ I was inches away from having my brains shot our through the back of my head. _ He wiped his hand on the leg of his pants and continued back to the castle. _So much for _that_ idea working. What are we going to have to do? Chain him to a desk and force him to sign the divorce agreement?_ He fingered Elizabeth's necklace. _Lucky I brought this with me. Next time—if there is one—I should make sure he doesn't have any weapons_.

The castle wall, covered with roses even in October, loomed up in front of him. He went through the small door, ducking to avoid the thorns. It was actually the side door, which had been used by the servants. The main gates had disappeared long ago under the rosevines, and were probably rusted shut anyways.

As he stepped into the courtyard, Rose clawed her way up his body and pulled herself onto his shoulders. She butted his face, purring.

"Hello to you to." He pulled her off and held her in front of him. Starting from the stump of her foreleg was a bronze leg, intricately carved to resemble the one she had lost. "That wasn't there when I left." He squeezed the paw, and delicate metal claws extended. "Amazing…who gave you this present, ma chére?" He replaced her on his shoulder and crossed the courtyard. When he stepped into the castle, Elizabeth was waiting on the top step of the North staircase, hand stretched out palm up in front of her. A translucent illusion of a story-book-type faery glimmered over it. When she noticed Gabriel she closed her hand over it and it vanished.

"You're back!"

"All in one piece." He started up the steps and was nearly knocked over when Elizabeth jumped off the top steps and into his arms. "I wasn't gone _that _long!" he laughed, carrying her the rest of the way up. Rose, disgusted with Elizabeth invading her space, leapt off and stalked off haughtily.

She kissed him hard enough to cut his lips on his fangs. "I was a little worried." She noticed his scratch.

"It's just a scratch, mon ange—a tree branch," he lied hastily. Better she not know. He set her down on her feet. "Where are Kal and Allison?"

"In their room, I guess." She took his hand and they started off in that direction. "Did you notice Rose's new leg, by the way?"

"Who_ made_ that?"

"'Ray." Elizabeth grinned. "You know she has a soft spot for animals—she just couldn't stand to see Rose hobbling around on three legs. It works like a real leg, some spell or something. All that aside, what happened? Did you and Giles--"

"I'll tell you everything once we're all in the same room."

Death was perched on a small table a few doors down from their room. He cawed morosely at Elizabeth. 'He said, "They kicked me out—I'd knock first if I were you'," she explained.

Gabriel knocked.

"Come on in!" Allie yelled from inside the room. She sat in a chair, a book open in her hands; Kal sat on the bed, fiddling with the strings on his violin. "Oh, good, you're back! How'd it go?" She blinked. "What's the look for, Liz?"

Elizabeth fought to keep a straight face. "Well…it might be a bit easier for you to read if that book was right-side up."


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: FINALLY finished.

"I am a killer; a murdering bastard--and you know that--and there are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard."

-Bill, "Kill Bill, Vol. 2"

* * *

"Who're_ you_?"

"I see the children these days aren't taught their manners."

Giles pointed the pistol at the stranger's head. It was empty, of course, but the silver-haired man didn't know that. "Answer my question."

"Well, since you asked _nicely_…" He gave a sarcastic little bow. "I am Jason Vayle—it's a pleasure to meet you, Giles."

"How d'you know my name?"

Jason laughed lightly, not bothering to hide his sharp teeth. "The same way you know mine: you told me. Not out loud, of course, but I saw it in your mind. Now. If you would excuse me, I must be going."

At the sight of his fangs, Giles had an idea. "Not so fast!"

Jason waited, rocking back on his heels. "Make it quick, I really can't stay long."

"You're a demon, right?"

"Quite obviously."

Giles racked his brain on what faery tales and folklore about demons he knew. "And…you kill people, right?"

Jason seemed taken aback. "What kind of question is that? Humans kill as much people as demons. As far as I know, anyway."

"If I pay you, will you kill someone for me?"

Jason laughed. "You say as if you're asking me to run an errand!" He shook his head at Giles. "What would make you think that I would want your money? I'm very wealthy. But!" he exclaimed, grinning, "try and convince me. Why do you want me to kill this person?"

"He stole my wife from me, and tried to kill me," Giles spat. "I want my revenge—and my wife—back. He's not even human—he doesn't deserve to live."

Jason narrowed his eyes. "_I'm_ not human."

Giles backtracked. "Forgot I said that. It's…I don't even think he's a demon."

"Really, now? You've caught my interest. Describe this dastardly, wife-stealing creature." He leaned back against a tree-trunk, fingers steepled under eyes that were focused unwaveringly on Giles.

Giles avoided making eye-contact, rocking back and forth a little nervously. When he had finished his slightly exaggerated description, Jason thought a moment, gnawing his lip.

"I would say his height is more around eight feet, not ten," he said at last.

Giles blinked. "I guess it could be eight…wait, how would you know?"

"Is his hair wavy, a bit around shoulder-length?"

"I think so, but how--"

"Does he growl when he's upset? A bit like a dog?"

Giles threw up his hands. "I don't know! I've only seen him face-to-face three times! Are you saying you know him?"

"I believe I had a run-in with him not that long ago. But he looked perfectly normal—it was a simple spell." Jason indicated his neck. "He tried to strangle me. Quite honestly, I think the fellow's insane. But, unfortunately, that doesn't mean I'd kill him. Besides, I don't like meddling in humans affairs too often—au revoir, Giles. It was a pleasure to meet you." He disappeared before Giles could blink.

"Damn it all!" Giles struck out at a tree. Instead of venting his temple, he got a nasty bruise and scratched up his knuckles.

* * *

Kal thought a moment, tapping his fingers on his leg. "Kill him."

"But Gabriel said he didn't even remember anything," Allie argued. "Wouldn't killing him be a bit…I don't know…"

Kal rolled his eyes at Gabriel. "And here I was thinkin' _you_ had a bleeding heart. What d'you think?"

Gabriel bit his lip. "Well…now that I've thought about it--"

"Damn scholar, always _thinking."_

"—I don't know if I'd be able to hurt an innocent."

"But he's not innocent!" Elizabeth looked around the circle the four of them formed. "He's hurt all of us—you the most, Gabriel. I hate violence, myself but I think I agree with Kal. His memory will come back sooner or later."

Kal nodded. "Exactly. And if he decides to come after us, I'll kill him anyway. It'll save time to get rid of him now."

Allie shot him a look. "You know, I bet that's exactly what my parents and Jessica planned to do with you."

He shrugged. "The _kiiyen_'s not me. Gabe, I thought you'd be agreeing with me and Liz—she's right: you should hate him the most."

"I know."

"And?"

He sighed. "When you look at it, he did have reason to do it. Loosing Marie all…I'd probably go insane if anything like that happened to Elizabeth. And, in a way, it was more my family's fault than his. They started all this."

"I'll add it to my list of people to kill," Kal said sarcastically.

"If we kill him," Elizabeth spoke up. "Isn't it possible that Gabriel's curse might break? Jason sealed it permanently, but if he dies…" She glanced at Allie. "Well? You're the only sorceress in the room."

"Ahh…" She stalled for time. "I really don't know all that much about curses and all, and the kind Gabriel has is a little unusual. Drakks—like you and Kal—are as a rule very rare, and a lot of spell casting rules don't apply to them, so--"

"She doesn't want to say it would," Kal interrupted. "Hide your thoughts a bit better, Princess."

"My…current body doesn't really matter."

Kal raised an eyebrow archly. "Oh? I thought you and Liz wanted kids."

Allie's jaw dropped. "Kal!"

Gabriel glanced at Elizabeth. "We do?" He backtracked quickly. "I-I mean, of course we do, but we aren't even married yet, so it's a little early to even think of children, but it doesn't really matter to me anyways—I mean, it does, of _course_ it does, dear--"

Elizabeth elbowed him in the ribs. "_Breathe_."

"Huh. I thought you two must've known that's impossible. Drakks can't have children."

"They can't?" Allie smiled tightly. "You neglected to mention that."

Elizabeth stood up abruptly. "Gabriel, d'you want to go out to the gardens with me? It's lovely weather outside."

"It would be my pleasure." He stood and nodded to Allie and Kal. "We'll leave you alone for a moment."

"Nice show of loyalty," Kal grumbled, flopping back on the bed.

* * *

**  
**

"Marie?" Jason surveyed her room. The dust—two inches thick in some places—over everything didn't strike him as odd. She liked to experiment with odd spells—perhaps with this one, she had stirred up all the dust.

_Perhaps she's in the courtyard,_ he thought, and transported himself there.

His courtyard was, in his opinion, his best work. In the very center of his underground castle, it went on for six miles in every direction. The ceiling was dirt, with plant- and tree-roots poking through, but he had spelled it to seem as blue and endless as the sky—likewise with the walls. The flora and fauna in the courtyard were all experiments of his own. There were a grove of trees with sapphire leaves that bore blood-red fruit as sweet as honey; the grass was a deep emerald green that shaded to a pale golden at the tips; glass roses and light-filled tulips and hundreds of others of flowers. Bees the size of newborn's fist went from flower to flower on feathered wings. On one of the benches (made from the same type of wood as Kal's violin), a creature he had taken in decades ago was curled into a ball. It was an unfortunate, deformed animal that bore some resemblance to a cat. The creature—whom he had dubbed Valiant--had one muddy green eye that took up most of its head, fur in patches on its thick leathery skin, and twig-like legs that supported its round body. It had a rat like tail and no ears. Jason's guess was that Valiant was a cat at some point, and a failed experiment by the time it'd crossed his path. Marie loved the thing, and spoiled it endlessly. It was odd not seeing it following her.

"Valiant! Where's Marie, you noble creature?"

Valiant yawned, exposing crooked grey fangs, and went back to sleep.

"Lot of help_ you_ are. You!" he shouted, teleporting back into the hall.

"Y-yes, Milord?" the goblin stuttered, digging her hands into her rag-dress.

"Is Marie still in the castle?"

She frowned. "Milord?"

"_Marie,"_ he repeated, wondering if the goblin were deaf. They had a tendency to loose their sharp hearing near the middle of their first century.

"Ah…are you feelin' well, Milord?"

"Yes, I'm fine," he replied shortly. Goblins frustrated him easily. They were wonderful servants…but not the brightest. "Where did she go? Topside to the market?"

The goblin muttered something unintelligible.

"Speak up, shyte-for-brains."

"She died fourteen years ago," the goblin stuttered, and turned to run away. She froze after a few steps—not figuratively. Jason froze her feet to the floor.

"_What?"_ he asked in a deadly soft voice.

"In-in the raid…the Noirmorts…"

Jason dematerialized without another word.

* * *

**  
**

Elizabeth paused to touch one of the roses. "You know, you've never mentioned why they never die. The blooms. I remember, last winter, they were covered in ice, and still in full bloom."

He shrugged. "Another spell, perhaps." He craned his neck to look at the sky. "Looks like rain."

"Yes. We're doing a lovely job of avoiding the subject, aren't we?"

"Quite." He sat down on a stone bench and moved over for Elizabeth. "You know, I think we're approaching this all wrong."

"I don't know….What _other_ options do we have?" She sighed and put her chin in her hands, looking glum. "If we don't kill him, he'll probably get his memory back and come after us again….and you'll be stuck like this forever."

Gabriel thought this over. "What if…we just ask him to reverse it?" It seemed almost too simple to him, but sometimes the simplest solutions worked the best. But—

"You think he'd actually do it?" She was staring at him with a look of incredulity on her face. "It's_ Jason_ we're talking about—and yes, what happened to Mirei, or Marie, I should say, was horrible, but even so…"

"It's worth trying. Besides, he's lost his memory, right?" Gabriel said hopefully. "Maybe he'll be a bit kinder."

Jason appeared behind him, one skeletal hand holding a dagger to his throat. "Tell me what you did to Marie, or I'll slit your throat."

* * *

**  
**

Roberta Bobette Robertson, better know as Bob, nodded his head sleepily. He had been at his desk for hours now, hunched over hundreds of documents. His delicate hands and the sleeves of his recently washed uniform were splattered with ink (as was his white hair, in places).

"Lieutenant!" The head of his department hopped onto his desk.

"Y-y-yes sir!" Bob stammered, jerking back from his desk so sharply he almost tipped out of his chair.

"Noirmort castle, on the double," the Head snapped, his velvety nose twitching irritably. "You're to inform Kalendrakk and the Princess of the rules. Why not bring the book?"

Bob scrambled to get his rulebook and his hat. "R-rules, sir?"

"THEY"RE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP, YOU IDIOT! AND WE HEARD THEY'RE THINKING ABOUT _MARRIAGE_! NOW _SCRAM_!"

Bob saluted the Head and scurried off to the closest exit door. As soon as he was in the open air, he eyed the cloudy sky gloomily and flew faster.

_Rabbits. I hate rabbits,_ he thought to himself. _Oh, I hope that Kalendrakk won't be too scary…he was so frightening the last time!_

* * *

**  
**

Kal crossed his arms over his chest. "I swear, the next person that comes through that door I'm eviscerating!" he grumbled.

"Don't act so grumpy," Allie snapped.

"Look who's talkin', Princess."

There was a knock…

* * *

Any ideas for future chapters/the plot in general will be greatly appreciated. 


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: For those of you who remember the lovely Roberta Bobette Robertson (the most random character I've ever created out of extreme boredom), yay.

He_ totally_ has plot significance.

Yes, very sad that Kal and Allie can't have kids (tear)…but can you imagine what a product of those two would _be_ like? Kinda funny to picture it, eh?

About the divorce-thing with Liz and Giles: I heard that divorce was very rare in those times, so I don't know how accurate the story is on that bit.

"I am the walrus….kew-kew-kachew!"

-The Beatles

* * *

Allie sighed and scooped up Rose in her arms; her spelled metal paw had made the tapping noise. "Please tell me you're not thinking about eviscerating the poor cat."

"I'll think about it."

Allie dropped her onto his chest. "And that's for your little _suggestion_."

He hissed in a breath and pulled Rose's claws out of his shirt and skin. "Kiiyen vokyenzii!" Rose ignored him and began to groom herself.

"Don't cuss at the cat."

"I can 'cuss' at whatever I want, _drose-t're_."

"Not if I say so, _droxen-t'ru_."

"Umm…e-excuse me?" There was a tapping at the window. "Miss Destra? Kalendrakk?"

Allie started and stared at the person at the window. "Do I know you?"

His eyes turned watery. "_You don't remember me?" _ he cried in a high voice.

Allie frowned thoughtfully. After a minute, her face lit up. "Oh! You're_ Roberta_!"

"Oh dear God, _no_," Kal moaned. He rolled over on the bed and pulled a pillow over the back of his head. "Go away."

"I think he's _sweet_." Allie crossed the room to let him in. "How have you been, Bob?"

"Fine, thank you," he sniffled. He folded his wings together and crawled in through the window. "You?"

"Ah…decent, I guess." She rolled her eyes. "There's been a few assassination attempts and some rogue demons…the usual."

Bob's eyes filled up again. "Oh! That's so _sad_!" He took off his spectacles, wiped his eyes with a handkerchief, and replaced them. The made his pale eyes seem twice the size, and made him seem all the more comical.

Allie waved it away. "I'm uses to it. By the way, I just love your hair! Did you cut it?"

Kal made gagging noises from his spot on the bed.

"Oh, just ignore him. He's in a bad mood."

Bob's eyes widened and he gnawed his lower lip. "Oh dear." He began twisting a leather-bound book between his small hands. "I-is he? How bad?"

Kal turned his head sideways and glared at him from under the pillow. "If my grandmother were sill alive, I'd pop out her eyeballs like grapes and put them in my wine."

Bob turned almost as pale as his hair. "Is that so?" He began to edge away towards the window. "Well, it's been nice seeing you again, Miss Destra, but I can come back another time. I just remembered, I had an appointment with my grandmother…thanks for reminding me, Kalendrakk…"

"Wait, why did you come here in the first place?" Allie beat him to the window and slammed it shut. "And how did you even know we were here? Virtually _no-one_ comes to the castle." She thought about the recent, unwelcome visitors. "Well, almost."

"It's fine; I can come back later--"

"Answer her question, you little pansy," Kal grumbled, sitting up. "Or I'll be snaking on_ your _eyeballs on to-night."

He paled even further, backing up until he was as far as possible from Kal. He opened the book he held (his hands trembling more than a bit) and flipped halfway through. "Ah…rule number one thousand four-hundred and three--"

"Of _what_?" Allie exclaimed. "Do you people have a separate rulebook just for Kal, or something of the like?"

Bob nodded weakly. "Over one thousand copies of it, ten for every main demon court."

"A court? What's a court?"

"It's what we call a group," Kal explained. "There're ten known courts—Sorcerer's Court, Healer's Court, and so on---and one rogue court, of demons and other immortals."

"We sent copies to the rogue court, but they burned them all. They don't follow any rules you see." Bob took a deep breath. "'Kalendrakk is forbidden any relationship, marriage, etc., with any mortal or immortal woman (or man). If the above occurs, the person in question is to…'" he trailed off, eyes darting from Allie to Kal.

Allie motioned for him to go on.

He gulped. "'…is to have her/his mind erased and any children conceived to be put to death.'"

Kal scowled. "The rules don't apply to_ us_, though. 'Allison Destra (the Princess)'s mind is not to be tampered with in any way, as this may result in a shift in the prophecy.'"

Bob stared at him, his mouth agape.

"What? I heard it from Jessica when I lived in the Eagle demon territory. As for any mutant kids..."

"Forget about that," Allie grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.

Bob closed the book and slipped it into a pocket inside his coat. "Now that that's over with, I'll be going."

"Just a minute, now." Kal slid off the bed and walked over to the window. "Remember to tell your boss this, alright?" He bent and muttered something in his ear. Bob listened for a full minute, went very pale, and nearly banged his head scurrying out of the window.

Allie marched over and punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Alright, you—what did you tell him?"

He grinned and looped an arm around her shoulders. "Oh…only that if they kept trying to interfere with us, I'd raze all their homes to the ground and slaughter them all down the to the last person. Stuff like that."

"You sure know how to flatter a girl."

* * *

"Well? _What did you do to her_?" Jason pressed the dagger against Gabriel's throat, drawing blood.

"He didn't do anything," Elizabeth snapped. "It was his family—don't tell me you don't remember_ that_, either!"

"Who's she?"

Gabriel took a shallow breath. "That would be Elizabeth. Ange, why don't you go inside?" _And tell Kal and Allison,_ his eyes finished.

She nodded shortly and left, shooting one hateful look over her shoulder at Jason. He stretched out the tips of his free fingers at her.

"Come back here, you!"

Gabriel smelled bitter-smoke, a smell he associated with Jason's magic. Apparently, it didn't affect Elizabeth, because he heard her slam the doors and, faintly, run up the stairs. He kept his eyes focused on one of the roses in front of him.

"Why didn't she stop?" Jason asked, more to himself.

Gabriel shrugged lightly. "I have no idea." _Probably her recently-discovered magic skills, _he thought to himself, forgetting that Jason could read minds.

He seemed not to care. "Fine. Just remember, if you lie, she won't be safe inside your castle, brat. Talk."

"My family planned a raid of sorts on your home some years ago," he said slowly. "I don't know the details. I know they must have done something like it before, only this time, they injured a woman: Marie. Only, you thought she was dead. From what we gathered, she suffered severe amnesia and was taken in by the Fay, and later came to my castle as Mirei, thirteen years ago. A while after that, when Elizabeth and I were in France, you staged my death to Elizabeth, told me Elizabeth was dead, and sold me to a circus. Sometime between then, you attempted to kill Elizabeth with a wraith, only it killed Marie instead. That was in July."

There was a long silence. Eventually, it was broke by Jason's incredulous laughter. "You—you think I would even_ attempt_ something like that? That's the most idiotic thing I have ever heard! My, you're an inventive liar! Have you some hashish in your room, perhaps?"

"I am, in fact, a terrible liar. Besides, wouldn't you know if I lied?"

"You obviously have some type of wall around your mind," Jason replied easily. "For one, while you look like it, you're not a Noirmort. If a drakk was in their family, they'd either kill it or find a way to reverse the transformation."

"You cursed me as a punishment to my family—I am Gabriel Noirmort. The little pansy," he added sarcastically as an afterthought. _Well…I did do nothing but paint and read and play music…maybe I was a_ bit_ of a pansy. The truth hurts._

Jason snorted. "Like hell you are. Being your father's heir, they would have fixed you long by now."

Gabriel sighed. This is really getting tiring. "First you made it so the spell would be broken by true love, and then you made it permanent. When are you going to believe me? It's 1874; Marie is dead; and you keep denying it, even though I keep telling you."

Jason relaxed his dagger-hand. "It can't be possible. You don't understand—I was just coming back from--" His hand tensed again, and a moment later, Kal, Allie, and Elizabeth were crossing the courtyard to them. "Stay where you are!"

Gabriel glanced at them out of the corner of his eyes. Kal, even though he was now supposed to be normal (as normal as he could be) seemed every inch a bloodthirsty killer. "You just stay where you are," he growled, "so I won't have to chase after you." Allie laid a restraining hand on his shoulder, and his shrugged it off roughly.

"Who are you?" Jason asked curiously. "I've never seen you before, either. As far as I know," he added under his breath.

"Oh, by the time I'm through with you, you'll_ remember_!"

Allie grabbed hold of his arm. "Kal, knock it off! Don't make me--"

"_Kal_? As in the Kalendrakk? That's impossible!" Jason exclaimed. "He's only six years old!"

Allie took a careful step forward, holding her hands up. "He's twenty-one. I'm Allison Destra."

"He was supposed to die before his twentieth birthday!" Jason seemed more disturbed by this than anything else Gabriel had told him. "You were supposed to have killed him long by now! Even so_, you_ should be four!"

Now Elizabeth stepped forward. "Please, Jason; let Gabriel go, and we'll explain everything to you."

Gabriel held his breath, waiting. Jason's dagger-hand had relaxed again. A little more, and he'd be able to break away; he knew he was quick enough.

Instead of dropping his hand, he grabbed Gabriel by his should with his free hand. "After I talk to the Noirmort a while longer." The smell of bitter smoke filled the air (only Kal and Gabriel could smell it).

There was a sound like a dry twig snapping, and Jason collapsed. Gabriel looked from him (he appeared to be unconscious) to the others. "What…?"

Allie shrugged. "I didn't do it—Kal?"

He shook his head. "What fun would it be to kill him when he's sleeping?"

Elizabeth looked shocked. "I…don't think I did it." She sat down next to Gabriel. "Are you alright?"

"Just fine." He kissed the top of her head and dropped the pendant into her hand. Behind them, Allie knelt down and prodded Jason with her finger.

"You really knocked him out, Liz—what did you do?" She peeled back one of eyelids and let it fall back. "A better question is what are we going to do with him? And no, Kal, you don't have a vote, so don't even ask."

"I don't know," she said honestly. "To either of the questions. I was just thinking I wanted him to drop that knife."

"He dropped it, alright," Kal remarked. He nudged Jason with the toe of his boot, not at all gently. "Heh heh…while he's asleep, why don't we cut off his--"

Allie gave him a disgusted look that was nearly comical. "No. Just…_no_."

* * *

****

Giles was asleep when his cousin arrived, quite deeply. It was a full minute before the heavy pounding on the door woke him. Groggily, he swung his feet over the edge of the couch and stumbled to the door. The setting sun was bright enough for him to squint. _This late already?_ "Yes?" he asked in annoyed voice.

"I was beginning to think you up and died," a familiar voice remarked cheerfully.

"What d'you want, Rene?" He yawned widely, leaning on the doorframe for support. He hadn't even been that tired when he had gotten back to the house; he had just drifted off.

Rene sidled in past Giles, clapping him on the shoulder as he went. "Just to visit my favorite cousin! I don't _need_ a reason, as you well know."

Giles yawned again and led the way into the parlor. "Last time you came was to tell me Tante Helene died. What are the bad new this time?"

Rene settled down comfortably into the armchair and propped his feet (and dirty boots, Giles noted glumly) on to the mahogany table in front of him. "What makes you think I have bad news?"

Giles mutely offered him a half a glass of brandy from the tray on the table and took one for himself. His mouth felt as if he had stuffed it with cotton. "Tell."

Rene grinned broadly and lifted his glass in a toast. He was nearly ten years Giles's senior—somewhere in his early thirties, though he could have passed for younger. His hair was black and short, a contrast to his pale skin and watery blue eyes. He had overly expressive eyebrows, and now they were raised in good humor. "To your health, cousin."

He rolled his eyes. "You didn't come an hour's ride just for a glass of brandy. What d'you want?"

"First, I'd like to offer my condolences. I heard you got married last year. As sad as I was to hear those depressing news," he added, "I heard the lady ran off on you. Should congratulations be in order?"

Giles glowered and tightened his fingers on his glass. "I'd rather not discuss it," he said through clenched teeth.

"Alright," Rene agreed easily. "But, first, you should be glad she ran off."

"_What_?" he exclaimed, his mind on Elizabeth and the thing she picked over him.

Rene pulled out a letter from inside his jacket. "'Swhat I came to tell you. Apparently, your parents forgot." He unfolded the parchment, yellowed with age, and held it out of Giles reach. "But…perhaps, with the lovely mood you're in, your beloved cousin doesn't _feel _like giving you this letter."

Giles snatched it out of Rene's hands, ignoring his sarcastic "You're welcome." He read aloud, eyes dancing over the paper.

"'Monsieur and Madame Gemme…how is the weather?' How is the _weather_? What the--"

Rene rolled his eyes. "Skip to then middle, genius."

Giles obediently skimmed over the middle of the letter, reading as fast as he could (which was quite slow). After he had finished he made choking noise. "BETROTHED?" he shouted, after finding his voice. "To the Princess? Of _FRANCE_?"

Rene cleared his throat. "Ah, not quite. Her parents were very rich, granted, and a lord and lady—their daughter was given the title as a joke, and it stuck."

"How rich?"

He considered it. "Now that her parents are dead—murdered, if you want to know—she must have inherited all their money. That, as well as the dowry…well, let's just say she's very rich. The problem is, the last time she was seen was early this summer, and she was in the company of another man. From the rumors, they're quite close."

All thoughts of getting Elizabeth back fled his mind. If this "Princess" was truly his betrothed…

"Allison Destra," Giles read off the paper. "Rene, would you mind if I accompanied you back to Paris?"


	11. Chapter 11

A/N:

shadowinRW: Excellent idea on the bets bit.

Any takers on who's gonna kill Giles first?

"Life's a game where they're bound to beat you/ And time's a trick they can turn to cheat you/ And we only waste it anyway and that's the hell of it."

-"The Hell of It," by Paul Williams (Phantom of the Paradise)

* * *

"Yes?"

Giles quickly scanned the woman that had answered the door. Not very tall—perhaps five foot three—thick black hair, pale skin, dark eyes, pale lips. Good figure. "Are you Allison Destra?"

She smiled, revealing very white teeth. "Why don't you come in, Giles." It wasn't a suggestion.

He gnawed his lip in annoyance. "Well? Are you Allison, or not?"

"Come inside." This time, there was no doubt it was an order. The smile never left her face…though, there was something a trifle disturbing about those dark eyes. "Please."

Giles felt oddly compelled to listen. He stepped in, removing his hat as he went. The place wasn't at all what he expected for a person of Allie's wealth; the door led right into the kitchen, where it appeared they also dined. There was a hallway to the left (presumably leading to the parlor) and two doors leading away from the kitchen/dining room.

"Please. Sit." Still, the charming smile, the courteous voice. As pretty as she was, Giles felt a bit unnerved.

He did as she told him. "And you would be?"

She sat down gracefully across from him. "Since you asked so politely…Michelle. Michelle Noirmort—while I'm at it, why don't I introduce you to the family? Follow me to the parlor."

Feeling slightly dizzy, he followed her. In the parlor (furnished with at least _some _taste) there were three other people, seated at various points: an older man and woman, and what looked to be Michelle's twin.

Voicing his thoughts she gestured to her casually. "My twin sister, Jacqueline. And, my dear parents, Claude and Monique. You've met my little brother."

"Brother?" Giles echoed dumbly, scanning the room. "I don't--"

"He's back at home," Michelle's mother, Monique, told him. She had a pleasant face, and cold eyes. "Certainly, you recall meeting my youngest child, Gabriel."

Jacqueline rolled her eyes. "Mother,_ anyone_ meeting Gabriel would remember it. Take a seat, handsome." She edged over and gestured for him to sit next to her. Giles stood rooted to his spot, staring rather impolitely at each of them in turn.

"That…he…Gabriel is your _son_?" he said at last.

"Well, he's not out daughter," Claude answered easily. "Sit down, boy." He grinned pleasantly and flicked his hand. At the same instant, Giles fell onto the couch, in between the twins. "Good boy. You came here looking for little Allison, didn't you?"

Giles nodded mutely. It was of course impossible that this man across from him could be Gabriel's father. For one, he was human. And he was much too young—Gabriel (though he had no idea how creatures like him aged) seemed to be older than Giles himself, and there was not one grey hair on Claude or Monique. And the twins! they couldn't be a day over eighteen!

"Good luck," Jacqueline snorted. "She's fallen for that Kal-character. Bad luck for you, Giles—Kal'd much rather kill you than look at you. If you ever were to meet him."

"But!" Monique added, "You might find them at Allison's castle. I heard they were there—isn't that right, dear?" She nudged her husband, and he nodded in agreement.

"Why don't we give you directions?" Claude offered. "Afterwards…we'll compensate for you having to come all the way out here."

"All the riches you could imagine," Michelle spoke up, leaning towards him with her dark eyes opened wide. "But only if..."

"…you stay away from our little brother," Jacqueline finished. "Now, that won't be too hard….would it?"

"Of…of course not," Giles stammered, swallowing.

"Excellent! Father, draw the boy a map."

Giles sat complacently between the twins as Claude sketched out a simple map on a piece of parchment that appeared to have appeared out of nowhere, as did the pen and ink-well.

He wouldn't realize what exactly had happened until he had arrived at Allie's mansion the next day.

* * *

****

"Gabriel? Gabriel, are you listening?"

He snapped his head up sharply enough that it drove a spike of pain deep into his neck. "Hmm?" He had been staring into the small fire that they had started in his room. He hadn't meant to drift off; it had just…happened. "Ah…what wee you saying, ange?"

"We said that the seals we put on that room will probably keep Jason in," Allie replied for her. "Unless he finds a way to break them, which isn't very likely."

Gabriel nodded. "Ah. I see. Makes sense." His head felt muddled, as If he had woken up for a nap. "Continue."

"That was all," Elizabeth told him.

Kal stood up, his spin crackling noisily. "Like we were saying, there's not much we can do until he wakes up—and when he does, we'll know. Princess?"

Allie slid off the bed. "See you in the morning."

"Morning?" Gabriel echoed. "How--" He glanced at the clock in the far corner. It read well past ten o'clock. "Goodnight," he finished hastily.

Elizabeth lingered for a moment after they left. "Are you feeling alright?" she asked. "You look a little…dazed."

He shrugged. He had gotten plenty of sleep the night before (anything around six hours was fine for him)—it made no sense he would be so sleepy now. "Just tired, I guess. Actually, I feel a little…queasy," he admitted. It was odd—for the first time since he was human, he felt almost _hungry_.

"You'd better get some rest---knowing our luck, Jason will probably wake us all up at some ungodly hour." She kissed him goodnight and seemed to hesitate before leaving.

"What is it?"

She blinked hard, and then smiled. "Oh, it was nothing. I just thought I saw…but it was just my eyes playing tricks on me, I'm sure. I'll see you in the morning."

Gabriel sat puzzled on the bed for a moment. There was still the tiny mirror he'd found lying on his desk. Hesitantly, he crossed the room and held it up to his face. For a second, there seemed to be a little brown in his irises, but it was gone so quick he could have been imagining it.

_Just my eyes playing tricks on me._

Despite having felt exhausted moments before, he found himself unable to fall asleep once he lay down in bed. Without bothering to put his shirt and shoes back on—what did it matter if it was indecent, everyone else was in their rooms—he left for the music room. He hadn't been in there for a while, and it was comforting when he sat down at the piano bench—comforting to him in the same way an old blanket was to a child. He flipped through some of his old music scores that were in a careless pile on top of the pile on the piano, and his jaw nearly dropped.

"Was I really that depressed?" he muttered to himself, scanning the notes in disbelief. "Dear Lord." With something akin to amusement, he replaced the stack of paper and found some fresh sheets (if somewhat crumpled) and an old, much gnawed on pen. Almost hesitantly, he played a few notes, and grinned.

_Let's see if I can write something a bit more cheerful…something for our wedding, perhaps?_

He lost track of time, as he usually did when he was really focused on something, and before he knew it, wakefulness turned into doziness, and in a few moments, he slid off the bench and was fast asleep. A few minutes later, he really wished he hadn't.

"_Hello, Gabriel." Monique smiled in the same lovely, elegant way she always had—just like he was in a child. It still seemed to stop before it reached her eyes. _

"_Mother." He bowed curtly, as he had been taught._

_She was leaning against the wall—outside of Elizabeth's room, Gabriel now saw. All at once, he felt ill. He wanted to run past her and through the door, but at the same time thought it would be a very good idea just to stay where he was. _

"_Silly boy," she sighed after a moment. "Planning on marrying a farmer's daughter? A peasent?" Monique regarded him with fake sorrow plastered on her still flawless face. "Why would you betray the family lineage like that? As the heir to the family--"_

"_You excluded me from the family long ago," he told her harshly. "You left and left me to insanity. Don't go on about my family duties. I'd rather set myself on fire than be apart the family. You—and Father and my sisters—are more monsters that I."_

_The grin returned. "Is that so, Gabriel? Then why are you the one with blood all over your hands?"_

_He stared in horror, for the first time realizing that his hands were matted with blood—as he watched, a drop gathered at the end of one of his fingers and fell to the carpet. _

_He ran past her and into the room. Elizabeth lay on her bed, the pale blue sheets now soaked with blood. As he got closer, it seemed her eyes were staring accusingly at him. Her throat had been brutally torn open, as if by…_

"_No!" he shouted. He whirled around, and now his father and sisters stood by Monique. _

"_You were always as bloodthirsty as us," Michelle chuckled. _

"_My heir," Claude taunted him._

"_You were born a Noirmort…" Monique started._

"…_and now you'll never marry a lowlife like her," Jacqueline finished. "Silly monster. You killed her yourself."_

Gabriel became gradually aware of two things: that his arm was in pain and that he was screaming. The former was because he had bitten his forearm to muffle the sound of his screams. Blood splattered to the floor as he got unsteadily to his feet and lurched out the door. Panicked, he managed the peculiar act of falling _up_ the stairs, cracking his head off of one of the steps. Shaking his head, he sprinted the rest to the way to Elizabeth's room, nearly falling over his own feet more than once.

He fumbled for the doorknob, knowing what he'd find behind the door, knowing he'd find her dead, killed by his own hands, but rushing into the room anyway.

Elizabeth was asleep on her side, curled up in a ball. She had kicked the covers off, and they lay in a knot at the foot of the bed. Her neck was smooth, and the front of her nightgown wasn't stained by blood. Feeling sick with relief, he clamped his hand down on his wound to stop the blood. He must have done something to wake her, because she cracked her eyes open.

"Ga'riel? 'Smatter? Morning already?" she mumbled.

"No, ange—go back to sleep."

Her eyes opened a bit more. "You're crying."

"I'm fine. Just go back to sleep." He let go of his forearm a minute to cover her back up. "It's not quite morning."

"Alright." She yawned and pulled the covers over her head. Judging by her breathing, she fell asleep a moment later.

Gabriel stood still for a moment, getting himself a bit more under control. After he felt (somewhat) sane, her bent down and pulled out the little box Elizabeth kept all the materials she used for dressing wounds: bandages, fine needles, strong thread, scissors, and other odds and ends. It came in handy, even if they weren't targeted by demons with murderous intentions. Having a courtyard full of roses came with its downs.

By the time he made it back to his room, the bleeding had mostly stopped. All the better: he'd never tried to stitch before in his life, wounds or clothes. He wrapped his arm loosely enough so it wasn't too uncomfortable—it would be scabbed over by tomorrow, anyways.

_Please, no more dreams,_ he thought, falling onto his bed in a heap and scarring Rose away.

If he dreamed at all during the night, when he awoke, he didn't remember it.

* * *

****

Jason gained consciousness around the time Gabriel fell back asleep. At first, he felt the panic most people did at waking up in a strange place with no memory of how they got there—in short, he was scared out of his wits for a minute. Then he remember the girl—the one with the curly hair. She had knocked him out somehow.

The confusion from then caught up with him. _Allison and Kalendrakk! Absurd! What kind of tricks is my mind playing on me? Perhaps I'm still unconscious from my fall…_ As he sat up in the guest bed, a sharp spike of pain in his forehead told him otherwise. _Wench gave me a headache while she was at it! Or, if I really am dreaming all of this…maybe I just turned over in my sleep._

Real or not, the room he was in at the moment was actually quite nice, a room he would have picked out for himself. It was a tad dusty, yes, but the furnishings were rich and tasteful, and the colors were dark reds and browns and golds, with a little black. There were a few dusty, aged logs arranged in the fireplace, and he lit them with an absent flick of his wrist. They caught like newspaper.

Wringing his spindly hands together in hopes to warm them up, he slid off the bed and slowly walked the length of the room, sitting down in front of the fireplace and holding his hands out after seeing there were no clocks. As he did, he closed his eyes briefly. _Around….one? No, closer to two. Let's say a quartet to. Sounds right. _Jason sat back in the comfortable armchair, feeling better now he was warm. "I think I've overstayed my welcome," he announced to the fire, and stood, ready to teleport back to his home. In a moment, he would be…

…right were he was, standing in front of the fireplace.

"_What_?" He tried again, willing himself back.

Nothing happened.

"Ah, damn!" He slammed his fists down on the stone mantle, leaving small indentations. Dust filled the air, making him sneeze convulsively. "Curse it all!"

Now that he knew something was wrong, he could sense the wards placed on the door and on the outside of the balcony doors.

"Damn children," he muttered, and began pacing.

Pacing was always good when you wanted to blow off a little steam. Also, it looked very intimidating.

* * *

****

Michelle sat on the roof of Allie and Kal's humble home, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. It was late, and she couldn't sleep. At least the sky had cleared enough for her to watch the stars. She had tried counting them, but it was much to difficult—near impossible, as a mater of fact. Once you started, you'd realize you had forgotten this one tiny star, and then you'd notice another, right back next to the first one, and you'd count others over again before realizing what you were doing.

_C'est impossible,_ she though to herself. Nonetheless, they were quite pretty.

There was a rattle as Jacqueline climbed up a flower trellis (barren of any flowers…it was seemed the Princess, while a great sorceress, lacked the skill to keep plants alive) and sat next to her, puffing slightly from her climb. "Mother said that we have to leave next week, at the latest."

"A shame," Michelle answered. "I'm enjoying Paris. Beautiful city, isn't it?"

Jacqueline smiled in agreement. "It is—and has so many shops, too!—but we really have to get started, if it's going to work."

"Of course."

"Also!" Jacqueline exclaimed suddenly, nearly startling Michelle into falling, "Father said he found that whip of yours. He mentioned that we might need it soon."

Michelle nodded. "Of course," she repeated. "Did he say…how soon?"

Jacqueline shrugged. "No, but who can say? It all depends on of this works out right. I hope it does—it's gotten a little boring, in my opinion." She stood carefully, dusted off her skirts, and got her feet over the roof's edge and back onto the trellis. "Coming in, Michelle? You'll catch cold if you stay up much longer."

"Good point." Michelle waited for Jacqueline's feet to touch the ground, and started don herself. As she followed her twin inside, she found herself wondering about her younger brother.

_As long as he does as hoped,_ she thought, _then it will all go smoothly._ Her thoughts jumped to Giles, the handsome young man that they had manipulated so easily.

_He's in for a nice surprise_

* * *

Sorry again about the late-ness! In case you're wondering about the little statements about 'it' from the Noirtmorts…

…well, you'll just have to wait.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Any suggestions for the story would be greatly appreciated.

Please.

Pretty please.

CURE THE WRITER'S BLOCK!!! I'm BEGGING YOU!

And thank you for your patience.

"No, Smarties are better than Skittles. I'm sorry, you're stupid."

-My art teacher

* * *

Kal awoke long before dawnbreak. One minute, he was fast asleep, and the next, he was wide awake and couldn't fall back asleep, no matter how hard he tried.

He slid away from Allie (she had been using his stomach for a pillow—he had no idea why—and he wondered distantly why her snoring hadn't woken him up earlier) and limped over to the window. It was going to rain soon; he could feel it in all the old breaks in his bones. Usually, his heart'd be giving him hell, but it seemed that he'd healed it for good after that arrow nearly killed him.

Kal jumped out the window after easing it open (it made a sound like a fork being dragged across a ceramic plate if you tried to open it too quickly) and flapped up to the roof. It too him a minute: fly at night was a chore, especially in cool, damp weather like this. He smelled Death before he landed.

"Why aren't you asleep?" he asked in his own language. He usually reverted to it when he was tired or annoyed (the latter being often). It didn't really matter, as both Allie and Death understood him perfectly.

_Why aren't you?_ Death countered.

He shrugged and lay down on the roof, crossing his arms under his head. "Couldn't get back to sleep—it happens from time to time. You, crow, usually sleep the night through."

_There was an owl in my tree,_ Death sighed unhappily. _It chased me out._

"Oh? I'm willing to bet my eyes that it scared the living daylights out of you and you flew away. Still scared of owls, M. Simon?"

_I most certainly am not! It was a very _aggressive _owl! It had talons the size of my beak!_

Kal laughed. "Just like old times, isn't it? Me n' you loitering on some guy's roof and me laughin' at your fear of owls."

Death ruffled his feathers and fixed him with his eyes. _Yes, but years ago you wouldn't be sharing the Princess's bed._

"Ah, shut up," Kal said amiably. "I would've thought you'd be happy for me, you know. Settling down—well, sort of—with a beautiful young lady and getting my first job and falling in love and happy shit. You're such a prude."

_This coming from the man who used to slaughter happy couples on the street._

"They were _disgusting_!" Kal exclaimed indignantly. "Slobbering all over each other's faces and making…_sounds_!" he shuddered.

Hypo_crite_, Death sing-songed.

Kal growled and made a swiping motion at the raven. Death flapped out of the way with an offended squawk, and began to preen his feathers. _Not funny. See, _this_ is why I'm going white. Speaking of people with white hair…what are you doing with Lord Jason?_

"Nice topic-change. And, first of all, his hair's gray."

_Well excuse me for being less observant! My eyes aren't what they used to be, you know._

"Yeah, yeah, you old bag of bones and feathers. We've decided to kill him."

_Beg your pardon?_

"Well, me and Liz think we should kill him. Ironically, Princess and Sticks--"

_I'm sorry—what about sticks?_

Kal grinned. "Oh, that's what I've decided to call long, tall, and furry—_Gabriel_, you kiiyen," he added after Death stared blankly at him. "He looks just like a bundle of sticks. As I was saying, it's ironic they think we should let the bastard live, because he's done the most harm to them. Well, it's obvious what he did to Sticks, that _plus_the whole circus episode and he tried to kill Allie--"

_What? When did that happen_? Death squawked. _You mean HE TRIED TO KILL THE PRINCESS?_

"Oh, I didn't tell you?"

_NO!_

Kal shrugged lightly, knowing the longer he stayed nonchalant, the more aggravated the raven would become. "It was no big deal. He slit her throat, but I fixed it. And tehn we all lived happily ever after."

_You FIXED it?_

"I healed it with the unbreakable bond of our love," Kal told Death seriously, his face completely straight. He lasted only a second or two before bursting out into laughter. "With—ah, that's a good one!" he roared, clutching at his stomach.

_I don't see what's so funny_, Death sniffed. _If you're going to act so childish, I'll just go find another tree to sleep in._

"Just—just a second!" Kal gasped, catching his breath. "Alright. I'm shuttin' up." He wiped his eyes and collapsed backwards onto the roof again. "I have an odd sense of humor."

_Really? Never noticed._

Kal sighed happily and stared up at the dark sky. Rain clouds were already blowing in. "Simon?"

_What now? _

"You haven't heard from Jessica in a while, have you?"

_No, I haven't._

"Good."

* * *

****

By the time Gabriel made it to the dining room, everyone was halfway through their breakfast.

"Here, I saved you some coffee." Elizabeth offered him the pot she was holding, and her jaw, along with everyone else's, dropped as he ignored it and went for a half-full plate of scrambled eggs instead. He picked up a fork (awkwardly, because it was much too small for his hand) and began shoveling the food unceremoniously into his mouth.

"I've never seen him eat before," Allie said in a surprised voice.

Elizabeth shook her head slowly. "Neither have I. In fact, I don't think he's eaten since he was human."

Gabriel poured himself a cup of coffee (black, as he usually took it) and used it to wash down the eggs. "I'm _starving_! And the food looks great, Fraya!"

The faery, who had already finished her breakfast, beamed before disappearing with her plates to the kitchen.

"It's about time you started eating," Elizabeth said.

"Want to take a bet on how much Sticks can cram into his mouth before he chokes himself?" Kal offered brightly. Gabriel had just grabbed a loaf of bread.

" 'Sticks?" Elizabeth echoed. Gabriel tried to say something and promptly began choking.

"And before I could take bets, too!" Kal shook his head sadly. "Really, you have no self control." He grinned at Elizabeth. "Oh, that's his name now."

"Not if he starts eating again," Allie pointed out. "I mean, it's a miracle he doesn't disappear when he turns sideways…I wonder how his metabolism works."

Gabriel shrugged. "Magic?" he suggested, and grabbed another plate.

"Speaking of food and magic," Allie said suddenly, "Should we feed Jason?"

Kal grinned. "Of _course_!"

"You're not force-feeding him his own flesh, so forget it."

Elizabeth pushed her own plate away from her. Gabriel was sweet, but…seeing him eat wasn't really doing anything for her appetite. For that reason, she looked across the table at Allie instead of directly at him.

Kal noticed it first. "Did you get Allie to glamour you?" he asked.

"I didn't glamour anyone—why?" she glanced at Gabriel and saw what he was referring to. "Elizabeth, did you do that?"

"Did she do what?" Gabriel asked after swallowing hard. Allie wordlessly passed a clean spoon across the table.

Elizabeth peered up at him. His eyes, instead of their customary red-on-black, were normal. There were a few red streaks in the otherwise brown irises, but other than that, completely human. The night before, she_ thought_ she had seen something_. And that's _definitely_ not a trick of light!_

"Ah. That's…odd." He shrugged and set the spoon down and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee.

"You're not concerned about it at all?" Allie said incredulously. "They're _human _eyes! Maybe the spell's reversing itself."

"Maybe," he allowed. "But it seems unlikely, now that we know Jason's alive and since he doesn't even remember the curse….I don't see how it can be reversing itself. Do such spells expire over time?"

"Maybe it's Liz," Allie suggested. "Now that she knows she can work-" She twiddled her fingers at eye level to indicate spellwork.

"Reversing it in bits and pieces," Kal chimed in. "That would look…very strange."

Elizabeth raised her hands defenselessly. "But…I'm not doing anything!"

Gabriel patted her on the shoulder as he stood. "It's not a bad thing, now, is it?"

"Where are you going?"

He smiled weakly. "To vomit, if I may be excused. I believe I ate a bit much a bit fast."

Allie grimaced. "Yes, just not on me!"

He nodded briefly at the group and left, one hand over his stomach. Kal waited a moment, and then looked slowly from Elizabeth to Allie, grinning.

Allie gestured at him threateningly with a butter knife. "If you're thinking bad thoughts-!"

"Now that Sticks isn't here, it's two for Jason's death, and one against, that's what crossed my mind. Why? What did you think I was thinking, hmm?" He raised an eyebrow. "The innocent little Princess having bad thoughts?"

She copied his expression and stared at him a moment. Elizabeth guessed she must have said something to him mentally, because the amused look on his face slid off fairly quick.

"I take it back!"

"Good."

She was a little curious as to what Allie had said/thought that made him take back his comment so quickly. She decided to let the dead cat be an example, for once, and didn't ask. "Why don't I check on Jason, see if he's still there?" she suggested. "After Gabriel comes back, we can decide what we're going to do with him."

"I'd know if he'd broken the wards, but if it suits you," Kal said with a shrug. "Why don't you put this in front of one of the doors, while you're there?" He tossed her a small crystal, about half the size of her pinky finger, that resembled quartz. In the center was a small red spot—a flaw of sorts—that resembled a raindrop.

"What is it?"

"Just a little souvenir from home," he replied, a grin coming back to his face.

"Is it quartz?"

"_Chéri?_" Allie said in sympathetic tones. "If he gives you an indirect answer, it's best just to accept it."

"Unless you _really_ want to know what it is," Kal offered.

"She doesn't. Trust me."

* * *

****

Gabriel paused halfway to his room. Oddly enough, it seemed that his nausea had passed_. Who knows? Maybe it happens a lot to humans. I haven't been one for years—it's something I could have forgotten. Maybe I'm actually becoming human…_He shook his head and started back towards the dining room. _Other matters at hand, Gabriel: focus on more important things._

He stopped again. An idea had just come into his head: the mirrored room Kal had discovered by accident. It apparently showed dreams of what could have been…or something of the sort. So wasn't it at all possible that it could show the future? Maybe it could give him an idea of sorts…what to do with Jason, for one. What was happening to him. Maybe even how the marriage-divorce problem with Giles was going to turn out.

_Considering everything_, he thought, _that's not such an insane idea._

Gabriel reversed direction and headed towards the staircase that lead down into the dungeons.

**88**

Jason decided to take a break form his intimidating pacing and sat back down in the armchair. Pacing did help him think, but after a while, it hurt his head from going back and forth in circles. He settled for drumming his skeletal fingers on the armrests. His train of thought was currently going nowhere, but an idea would come to him sooner or later. Preferably one that would explain the mess was he in—he still couldn't wrap his mind around everything the Noirmort brat had told him. Jason had his off-days, true, but….torture? _Murder?_ _I'm not a…a faery-tale villain! I'm a respected sorcerer. I have a fiancée. In all my years, I've never once broken any one of the dozen sorcerer codes!_ After a while, he began tapping one of his feet. He thought he'd rid himself of all those nervous ticks when he was in his nineties, just a boy.

And that girl! Since when had he been caught off guard with a spell like that? He wasn't all that upset about having been knocked out—theses things had a tendency of happening to you, but you learned to cope—but being caught off guard! She was a _child,_ not_ even _half his age, and she had been able to knock him unconscious with a rudimentary spell of the sort you learned when you first started your schooling in magic.

It wasn't just annoying, it was_humiliating_! As one of the most powerful and accomplished sorcerers in Europe, he had a reputation. And this_ infant_--!

"Speaking of the devil," he muttered. He could sense her coming—smell her, actually. She smelled faintly of apple blossoms, oddly enough. He supposed it was her magic, like how he smelled faintly of smoke. It was something short of a miracle he could smell _anything_: even with the windows shuttered and it being late October, the scent of roses was nearly overpowering. It brought to mind his friend's funeral. The funeral planner poor Perren's wife hired had _crammed_ the room full of them, and there were more on his grave. Perren had hated roses, ironically.

Elizabeth opened the door partway and looked in.

"Have you come to bid me a good morning?" he asked sarcastically. "Mayhap apologize for the other day? No?"

"I was just checking if you were still here."

"Were else would I be?" He tapped his fingers crossly. "This place has enough wards on it to keep a spirit locked in!"

She glared at him and backed out. "I'm leaving."

"What, so soon? You know, it's not very polite to keep guests locked up in a room."

She stopped. Jason got the feeling that, with the look she was giving him, he might've done better to keep quiet. He'd seen some spellcasters kill people with looks like that. "You have no right to lecture me on politeness. I doubt if you asked Gabriel his permission before you took his humanity away."

Jason stood up, holding back his frustration and holding his hands up. "Look, child, I don't know_what_ is happening, but I don't remember--"

"Then remember!" she snapped, and slammed the door hard enough to shake the doorframe: not an easy feet, with the wood as thick an heavy as it was.

For the second time, Jason's eyes rolled back into his head. _Caught off-guard again,_ was his last conscious thought.

* * *

****

It took some trial and error, but Gabriel managed to retrace Kal's footsteps to the trapdoor. Just in front of it, on the wall, was a smooth wooden plaque, unharmed by the damp. In brass letter was _La Pièce de Rêves. _ He took a step and fell through the trapdoor. He intended to land on his feet, but the floor was more slippery than he had expected: his legs flew out from under him and landed squarely on his tail.

Biting his lip, he got slowly to his feet, and turned around.

An older version of himself stood maybe six feet away. There were gray streaks in his hair and lines at the corners of his mouth and nose, and at his eyes. He was human.

His other self bowed stiffly. "This is the room of dreams," he said, repeating word for word what Kal had been told. "Not specifically your dreams, the sort you have whilst asleep, but dreams of everything: dreams of what the future may have been what the past may have been…and so on."

"I know."

His other self smiled faintly. It was a sad smile. "This is a dream of what will be." He stepped to the side, letting Gabriel see the wall of broken mirrors. They knit themselves together, gradually becoming smooth and whole. He saw his reflection become that of his other self. He was kneeling in the back courtyard in knee-deep grass—in the image, his back was to him. A rose was in one hand, and a gravestone was in front of him.

Gabriel turned quickly to his other self, the one that wasn't in the reflection. He noticed how worn and sorrowful he seemed for the first time.

He was about to rethink his idea, and collapsed.

* * *

The Room of Mirrors 


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: My characters would like to point out that any that they are not responsible for any of their actions (I think they may be thinking of bringing me to court for some blackmail issues).

Also, Allie would also like to bring to light that Kal has more mood-swings than a pregnant woman.

(Thanks again for your patience.)

"What is most important to you? Would you give me the happiness of stealing it from you?"

-Sephiroth, "Final Fantasy IV: Advent Children"

* * *

After he left Allie's house in Paris, he spent the night in a filthy little in with a noisy couple in the room next to him. All the next day was spent in a bumpy carriage. 

By the time they reached what was left of Allison's manor, he wasn't in a good mood. He stumbled out of the carriage with his mouth agape and took a few steps toward the burnt remains. It was obvious that someone had done some tidying since the disaster: the courtyard was free of debris, if rather overgrown. Wrought-iron gates, twisted out of their original shapes, were piled to one side. Other than that, it was obviously abandoned, an empty shell of what it had once been.

A cool breeze, promising rain later in the day, blew through the burnt house. It made an echoing, groaning sound. It lifted Giles's hair off of the shoulders of his coat (now wrinkled, from sleeping in it). He stood as still as a stone statue for a moment, shocked. It had never once occurred to him that the beautiful and sociable (if rather strange) family would lie to him.

Of course, he didn't know the Noirmorts.

He let out a string of curses that, while they weren't as bad as some, the driver sitting back at the carriage winced. "We will be going back, then, Monsieur?"

Giles spun around on the heel of one finely polished leather boot and stalked back the carriage. "Straight home," he confirmed, spitting the word through his teeth. After climbing into the carriage, he slammed the door hard enough to rattle the small glass window (and catching the tail of his coat in it in the process).

He had been tricked and disappointed by enough people. Giles decided that once he got back home, he would take his pistol and his horse and march straight up to Gabriel's castle. The idea of a nice angry mob of his fellow villagers had its merits but he knew they'd only mark him as a crazy man, even after seeing him last winter. People had a way of forcing themselves to forget things like that, things that deterred them from their everyday lives. He could maybe convince a good handful; most likely more. The men would probably agree to do anything he suggested after a couple of pints of ale were in them.

Giles simply wanted the pleasure of finishing off the monster himself, once and for all. Elizabeth might not even want to be his wife…but what choice would she have, If Gabriel were dead?

He mentally prepared himself for the bumpy ride ahead and went over his plans in his head. The Noirmorts didn't matter anymore. So what if he promised not to go near the twins' "little brother"? Promises didn't count for much. They were only words, after all.

_They'll probably thank me afterwards, for ridding the earth of that monster. The Allison business can wait until later. I doubt her suitor is really as violent as they said._

* * *

Half an hour after Gabriel failed to return, Elizabeth started to twist her hands together nervously. She really had no cause to be paranoid, she told herself, but she was.

"He's asleep," Allie said out of nowhere. "I just….you know, tried to get a hold of his mind," she explained. "He's out like a light."

Elizabeth relaxed and smiled gratefully. "He's been tired lately. I guess that makes sense."

"Idiot shouldn't have bolted down all that food," Kal scoffed. He relaxed back against edge of the bed. They were in Elizabeth's room, this time. After she had arrived from checking on Jason, they all ended up sitting in there to talk. They decided they really couldn't do much about their unwanted guest until at least a bit of his memory returned. Then they could fairly judge his character.

"He hadn't eaten since he was a child," Allie reminded him. "He probably forgot." She walked slowly around the room, admiring the walls. "You know, there's probably a king's ransom, just on this wall!" she exclaimed, brushing a hand gently over the tiny diamonds. Three of the miniscule jewels were clustered at the center of each morning glory (the walls were painted with a pattern of them). "The room must have been for a very wealthy guest. I wonder why the difference in flowers…roses practically overrun everything else."

Elizabeth shrugged from her position on the bed, propped against the headboard. "I never bothered to ask."

"The Princess here is always interested in irrelevant, boring things," Kal told Elizabeth in conspirative tones. "Alright, this room has different flowers. What does it matter?"

Allie stuck her tongue out over her shoulder. "Just because you're not ever interested in anything doesn't mean I'm not."

"I'm interested in lots of things. See this scar?" He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt (Allie had forced him to wear it, declaring it was indecent for him to go around without one all the time) and indicated one of his many scars. "That burn there? That's because I was interested in cooking myself a nice, plump rabbit."

Allie turned a delicate shade of green and shuddered. "No talk of that, please."

"Then what about the time I cooked a big pot of stew? That one with the human heart in it?"

Elizabeth, usually amused by their banter, stared off into space, brought back by Allie waving a hand in front of her face.

"What's the unhappy look for?"

She twisted a lock of hair around her finger. "I was just thinking."

"About…?"

"Read her mind and find out, why not?" Kal suggested. "It doesn't make sense to ask all those questions before finally getting her to cough up the subject."

Allie sighed. "Two questions, Kal. And it's impolite to read other people's minds without their permission."

"Doesn't stop you poking around in my head."

"I was thinking about postponing the wedding," Elizabeth said abruptly, bringing their argument to an end. "I thought…with all of this…stuff…happening, it's going to be impossible to have it anyways. Why not put it off a month or so?"

"Oh…." Allie's face dropped. "Liz, I'm so sorry."

Kal twisted around so he could see them. "Sorry? Why in the hell would anyone want to condemn themselves to marriage with a bunch of murder-bent people flocking around?"

Elizabeth nodded. "Exactly. I want it to be perfect. As perfect as condemnation can get," she added dryly with a glance at Kal. "I'll have to ask Gabriel about that, though, see what his decision is."

Kal flapped his hand. "He'd agree to anything you'd say. I bet if you told him to cut off his leg with a dull knife, he'd do it. You should try that one day. Go right up to him and say 'Darling-love, cut off your leg with that butter-knife, will you?'"

"Have you sent out the invitations yet?"

"Yes, but I didn't really invite that many people." She shrugged and smiled helplessly. "I know I have a lot of cousins in Brussels, but….you know. My father's coming and so are you two, and Ella and 'Ray, and Jocelyn and Pierre…I can just send Pierre and Jocelynn letters."

Kal ticked the numbers off on his fingers. "_Seven?_ Is that what you humans usually have?"

Allie shoved him lightly. "Of course we don't! Sometimes there are over a _hundred_! Where have you been living, in a cave?"

"No, but when I wake up to your charming face, I sometimes wish I did. Bats would be preferable." He easily caught her punch. "But _still, _only a couple hundred? When they were alive, the Rehniikah invited the entire community— over three _thousand_, at least."

Allie grumbled and retrieved her hand. "How can you _remember _all this?"

"If you had gotten lost in a party of some three thousand people, you would remember it to."

"It's all and well," Elizabeth continued. "We don't really have anyone to marry us, anyway. I thought, maybe if we blindfolded a minister and then led him here…but that probably wouldn't work out, would it?"

Allie sat up, immediately cheered again. "Well, then, now that you have a bit of extra time--"

"I still have to ask Gabriel," she reminded.

Kal rolled his eyes in imitation of Allie. "You say that as if you _didn't_ have him wrapped around your pinky finger. Really, if I were you--"

"—we can help you find someone," Allie pressed on. "I'm sure there are lots of non-humans that also happen to be ordained ministers."

* * *

_Inside the Room of Dreams_

Gabriel Noirmort knelt in front of Elizabeth's gravestone. His legs had gone numb long ago below the knee, but he hadn't budged. Even though she had been gone for almost a year, he couldn't quite understand that his angel was now six feet under the ground. Kneeling there, staring at the already weather-stained stone that marked her grave, helped make the message clear.

He turned the rose over and over in his hands. Since her death, he hadn't put a single flower on the grave; doing that would make it too…final. People put flowers on graves in respect for the dead, but the flowers _would_ rot. And that rotting smell he associated with death. Even so, every day he would cut a rose from anywhere on the castle grounds and bring it with him to her grave, He would hold it in his hands while he sat there (sometimes for hours at end, often crying for part of that time—no-one was there to watch him, so what damage did it do his pride?) and bring it with him when he dragged himself away. He usually ended up burning it once he got to his chambers.

Allison and Kal continued to visit him daily, and he wished they wouldn't. He knew they worried about him and his health; now that he was human, he body seemed more affected by stress. He looked in a mirror, once, a week after she died; he seemed to have aged a decade, and his eyes were bewildered and hurt, the eyes of an animal that had been kicked.

He hadn't picked up another one since. And, while he kept to himself (his daily routine rarely took him outside of his room—he had gotten Kal to move the upright piano into it, now that his own strength was proportionate to his scrawny body), he couldn't bring himself to tell them to leave him alone. So, they came, three times a day, every day. They ate with him: he suspected they were worried he would neglect to eat if left to his own devices. Fraya and Ella still brought him food and cooked for him, and even talked to him once in a while. He answered them with polite, monosyllabic words, and more than often, they would leave with downcast faces. He had never been a very talkative man, but he usually engaged them in some sort of conversation. Before Elizabeth died, that was. As a matter of fact, he'd spoken less than usual since then. _All_ of his conversations were brief, no matter how much Allie tried to cheer him up. Even Rose seemed to make an effort. He went on taking care of her and grooming her and occasionally dangling a scrap of fabric for her to swat at; it didn't require much thought.

"You're being missed, ange," he muttered at the gravestone. "Dearly." The thought circled around in his head, over and over: if only he had been human, if only he had been faster, just a bit faster…

Last year, before their wedding, it seemed that finally being rid of his cussed drakk-body would be a blessing. Now, in later September, sitting in front of her grave with the rose thorns cutting into his soft palms, he wished the opposite.

If he had been faster. Only a minute faster.

* * *

Claude sat in the small parlor of Allie and Kal's house. On the table in front of him was a glass orb akin to the one Jason occasionally used. He watched his son carefully as he lay unconscious in the mirrored room. Claude had to keep a close watch (and he had been for the past week or so) to ensure his heir's safety. The Room of Dreams had harmed others in the past—not directly, of course, but some of the visions had driven a few to injuring themselves and (in one case) suicide. Not everyone liked what it showed them.

The Room was one of his and Monique's great accomplishments together. With the two of them working on it almost around the clock, it had taken them nearly three weeks, but in the end, it was worth it. With the combination of dozens of different magicks and painstaking spellwork (at one point, they called in a skilled, if somewhat eccentric, magician for assistance), it was truly a masterpiece. It was a pity they hadn't thought to build it in a more obvious spot…then again, they couldn't have had their guests wandering into it on a whim, could they?

Now seeing it after better than a decade through the orb, he felt the same sense of pride as he had when it was fully complete. Gabriel was born not too long after that, but Claude wasn't sure how long. His youngest child, while his only son, had never really attracted much of his attention. He had been such a quiet baby, after all—they hired many a nursemaid for him, as Monique and he were usually busy entertaining guests—and when he grew older, he didn't change much. He was always so _careful_ in his ways, even as he neared the awkward clumsiness of a teenager. Beyond that, Claude (or any of the family) didn't know much, but in the recent week or so he seemed the same. At times, Claude found it hard for him to believe any of his children could be so_ weak_. Though, the little incident that had taken place in the dungeons _was_ encouraging. He'd appeared to have a bit of a backbone; that little peasant wench seemed to have something to do with that. Of course, when it finally came to killing the disgusting vampire, he'd proved too weak. Michelle had stepped in then—no confusion about her name there. Michelle had always been a promising child.

"I'm back!" Monique called out as she let the door slam shut behind her. She set down her basket of groceries and dropped down on the couch next to him a moment later with a sight. "Well? How's our baby fairing?"

"Look for yourself." He moved over so she had a better look at the orb. She studied it for a moment, the faint light from it washing over her face and illuminating small wrinkles. They were barely visible otherwise. Neither Claude, his wife, of his daughters had aged much during the past decade or so. It was a quite a bit of a story, but in short, deals were made, souls were forfeited, and money switched hands.

Monique settled back against the couch. "It appears that our youngest is in intense agony, emotion wise."

"Perfect?"

"Perfect. Whose idea was it to send him down the Room, again?"

"Jacqueline's. She also came up with the manipulation of his dreams, to see just how he would react to the girl's death. Especially if he himself manufactured it."

Monique smiled faintly at the memory. "That will certainly be useful later on, won't it?"

"Indeed it will."

They both watched Gabriel in silence, Claude's arm wrapped around her waist and her head against his shoulder. They were the perfect picture of a happy married couple.

Their faint smiles didn't change as they watched Gabriel awake with a start. Even though the orb couldn't allow them to hear what was happening, both could tell he was screaming.

Fortunate that the Room locked all sound inside it.

* * *

Ella skipped about the corridors aimlessly. She had nothing to do—Liz's horse was groomed, the stall clean, supper wasn't for hours, 'Ray was reading a book—and skipping aimlessly was as good a pastime as any other. For one, it was carefree. For another, it was good exercise. She could use some exercise, after all: teleporting from place to place tended to make you lazy. And, while she skipped, she hummed happy-go-lucky folk-music in time with her skipping. It was really quite fun.

She was passing the top of the North staircase when someone started knocking on the door. "Just a minute!" she called out. She skipped down the stairs, two at a time, and then skipped all the way across the open entrance hall to the door. She flung it open and bowed grandly. "Bonjour, whoever you are, and welcome to the Noirmort castle!"

* * *

Give into peer pressure.

All the cool kids are doing it.

Review.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Nothing much to say today...except beware of typos.

I,m a horrib;e typoer./

"Until you_ stop _these things from happening_, THIS _thing does not happen!"

-Signora Carlotta Guidicelli, "Phantom of the Opera"

* * *

He hated the cold. Having spent all of his life in the middle of the desert, he had very little tolerance for the temperature change when he ventured out of it—not that he did much venturing that often. Though he, like every one else, got itchy feet every so often, and wanted a change of scenery. A few months ago, he made up his mind to go visit France. France was a nice enough place and he like the language. Besides, he knew a family that lived there, and once he arrived, they would most likely lend him a bed until he decided to return home. Making up his mind, he folded up his tent into its bag, crammed his old, well-worn hat onto his head, grabbed his walking-stick, and started out. 

He reached his destination three months later, still perfectly cheerful. He'd made some good money on his journey, and camped in hundreds of different, interesting towns. Whistling a tune, he entered through a side door (his hat getting caught on some thorns in the process) and made his way across the courtyard. It was quite more…flower-y than he remembered it. He wasn't sure when he'd last been here; his grasp on time was rather poor. The house looked just the same, though, and he smiled at it. It was quite a lovely house.

He climbed the steps and knocked on one of the doors using his walking stick. As he waited for someone to answer, he examined his coat. The bottom of it was covered in Fates-knew how many different types of road-dust. He breathed in a lungful of the rose-fragrant air and puffed out his breath down at the hem of his coat. The dust flew off in cloud, leaving his coat clean-as-you-please. He looked up with a ready smile on his face as he listened to the approaching footsteps. A moment later, the door swung inwards.

"Bonjour," a willowy pale girl with green hair greeted him cheerfully, with a deep bow, "whoever you are, and welcome to the Noirmort castle!"

He returned the bow, and dropped his bag to curl his fingers over his thumb in a loose fist and tap his chest, over his heart. It was an old custom, back from his mother's home. While he had only been there once or twice, he was steeped in all the courtesies and customs. "Bonjour, mademoiselle!" he said in return, loving the way the French words sounded coming from his mouth. Of all the languages he knew, it was one of his most favorite. "How do I find you on this lovely day?"

"Lovely!" she chirped. "I'm Ellansey."

He bowed again. "My pleasure, Mlle. Ellansey. Is Claude and Monique here?"

She blinked as if the names were unfamiliar. "Who?"

"Claude and Monique Noirmort," he repeated. "This is their house."

She pondered that, scratching her head. "Ah…no, sorry, I don't know those names. Are you sure you don't mean Gabriel Noirmort?"

He shook his head. "No, he's still a babe, yet."

Her eyes lit up. "No! He's this tall!" She leapt into the air, her arm stretched over her head as far as it could. "And he's…well, I don't know how old he is, but he's a human adult—but not human, because he's furry. Want me to get his fiancée?" Without waiting for a response, she disappeared into thin air—a fine trick, one he'd always admired--, presumably to get the aforementioned fiancé.

He grinned to himself and stepped in, closing the door casually behind him with a wave of his walking-stick. The entrance hall had certainly changed since he'd last been here: it was covered in painted roses. They were quite attractive, actually; he wondered if Claude and Monique had hired an artist to paint them. Or that if they were still alive, for that matter. For him, time always seemed to slip by too quickly to keep count. It didn't cause him much distress to know it was possible his acquaintances had died. People died. It was a part of life.

A trio came down the stairs, led by Mlle. Ellansey, who a moment later, disappeared. He could tell there were three people, but other than that, they were too blurry for him to tell much else. He was terribly near sighted.

* * *

Allie had seen a lot of odd-looking people ever since she met Kal. It got so she was rarely stunned if she was met with a demon with three arms and a leg, for example. 

The man who stood in the middle of the entrance hall topped all the demons she'd ever met, mostly because he was human (as far as she could tell). He was maybe average height, perhaps a bit shorter. He wore a floor-length coat of a faded deep purple color, so she couldn't tell if he wore boots or was bare-footed. The collar of his coat was huge and round and buttoned to one side with offensively orange buttons, as did the buttons that went all the way down the middle of the coat, and the sleeves that drooped past his hands. His skin was tanned to the color of light coffee, and his face was square. He had large eyes (a rather wonderfully impossible shade of green), a long nose with a small bump on the bridge, and thick lips that were pulled into a smile. A set of scar went out from wither corner of his mouth all the way to his jaw, making his smile seem to stretch. There were small vertical scars running along these, like stitches.

The most shocking feature, though, had to be his hair. It long and thick and wavy, falling down past his elbows from under a faded, pale blue hat (that almost came to a point, but it was a little too worn to tell) that had a crimson feather suck in the brim. His hair was a bright, cheery shade of purple. The week's worth or so of beard stubble that ran along his jaw and chin was also purple. He was so colorful—so _purple_!—that Allie had to blink a few times, to make sure it wasn't an illusion.

"Why, hello!" he called out to them. His voice was a smooth tenor, and completely unaccented. "And who have we here?"

"Ah…Elizabeth Merle, Allison Destra, and Kal," Elizabeth said in a stunned voice, gesturing to each of them in turn.

He squinted up at them. "Would you mind coming a bit closer, dears? I'm near-sighted, and you look like a group of bright blurs from that distance!"

Kal hung back. "Who in hell's name are you?" he exclaimed.

"Hmm…just a moment." He pondered the question and then tapped his walking stick (a gnarled thing, shoulder height, that was a glossy sand color) triumphantly on the floor. "I am Herbert. I met a sawbones in town with that name, and I find it rather delightful, don't you?" Allie and Elizabeth had stopped maybe ten feet away. He squinted, and then rummaged through deep pocket in his coat. "I seem to have misplaced my specs again…just a moment." He took a step closer. Instead of squinting, he opened them as wide. His eyeballs seemed to bulge, and after a moment, it became apparent they were. Another moment and they came out of his head entirely with a wet _pop _and rose on their optic nerves, swaying like a pair of snakes. The eyes moved closer and peered at Elizabeth and Allie separately. "My, what beautiful young ladies you are! Now, which one of you is Elizabeth, and which one is Allison?"

Kal put a hand on Allie's shoulder and pulled her back, a growl building in his throat.

Herbert recoiled, eyes bouncing backwards. "You're quite frightening," he said in a matter of fact voice. "Who might you be, young man?"

"Here I was thinkin' every damn person knew me by sight," Kal remarked. Allie shrugged his hand off of her shoulder and stepped forward to shake Herbert's hand.

"Don't mind him—that my…well, that's Kal. I'm Allie, and Elizabeth is the one with curly hair."

Herbert bent over her hand. "Wonderful! Oh! That _smarts_!" He hissed and his eyes pulled themselves back into their sockets. He blinked furiously. "Dust," he explained.

"How can you do that?" Elizabeth asked in a voice that was equal parts disgust and interest.

He beamed, the scars at the corners of his mouth wrinkling. "I can do that, Mademoiselle, because I-", he swept off his hat with a flourish "-am a magician!"

While the girls applauded him politely, Kal regarded him without interest. "What are you doing here?"

"I simply felt like a change of scenery, and I used to know the family that lives here. But I gathered that Claude and Monique are no longer here. Did they die?"

Allie exchanged a glance with Elizabeth. "Did they?"

She shrugged. "I don't exactly know where they are,' she said, addressing Herbert. "But their son—my fiancée—is here…it's a bit of a long story."

He clapped his hands together once, loudly. "Well, I'm a devil when it comes to stories, long or short! I'll trust you'll tell it to me. May I settle into my room first? I can meet up with you in…say a half hour. If the haven't changed the library, we can meet there."

"A…alright." Elizabeth blinked and moved over to the side of one of the staircases. "Will you two keep an eye on him while I go get Gabriel?"

"Sure. He doesn't look all that dangerous to me. A little odd, but then again…" Allie trailed off and stared pointedly at Kal.

He scowled and shoved her lightly. "You don't look so ethereal yourself, Princess."

Herbert, meanwhile, attempted to climb the staircase. He lifted one foot up, put it down on the edge of the stair, and when he tried to go up, fell flat on his face.

Allie shook her head. "How many people do we know who fall _up _the stairs?"

He got to his feet with the aid of his walking stick and waited there. "Mayhap a little help…?"

* * *

Elizabeth nearly tripped when she came to the dent in the floor, near the staircase that led to the dungeons. Instead, she stumbled headlong into the wall. Cursing under her breath, she gained her balance and continued along her way. She was about to go straight ahead (she thought he might be in his room) when she heard footsteps from behind the door. "Gabriel? Is that you?" 

"Ange?" He ducked through the door and only straightened up partway, looking down at her. "Are you...what is it?" He appeared dazed, and his voice was scratchy.

"I was just looking for you—we have a guest. Why were you down there?"

"I…I thought I heard Rose, and I was worried she might have gotten down there again. I just finished looking…she'll be in my room, I'm sure." As he said this, he turned a ring she hadn't noticed before absently around his left index finger. He didn't stop her when she took his hand to get a closer look at it.

It was a heavy signet ring. In the center of the circle set on the band was a raised, ornate 'N'. In the background was what appeared to be a family crest of sorts. "Is this new?"

He frowned slightly. "No, it's quite old, actually. I've had it since I was a child…odd. I don't remember seeing it for years and years. I must have forgotten putting it on."

It was Elizabeth's turn to frown. "Gabriel, are you alright? You seem a little…dazed."

His face broke into a smile. "I'm perfectly fine, don't you worry. I think I'll get myself a strong cup of coffee, though. I can't be greeting a guest asleep on my feet. Come with me?"

She walked with him to the kitchens (they were below the first floor on the west side), holding his hand; she wouldn't be able to for too long, because the blood would run out of it from holding her arm up. They walked in companiable enough silence, which Gabriel only broke once.

"Promise me you won't live the castle grounds by yourself?" It was caught between a statement and a question. He said it almost nochalantly.

_So this is what's bothering him. Huh. I wonder why._ "I promise," she replied easily. "It kind of makes sense not to, with all these things happening."

He nodded, obviously relieved. "Now, why don't you tell me about our guest?"

* * *

Jason awoke forgetting where he was and nauseous. Had he been in his won room, he would have almost certainly made it to his bathroom. He ran to where his own bathroom would have been, but it was just plain wall. He hadn't eaten for quite some time, so he only vomited strings of stomach acid and spit. He moaned and sat down hard, making the mess disappear with a flick of his hand. He was shivering. 

_I did everything they said. I killed Marie._

He snapped the fingers of his right hand together, grateful for the small orb of fire that formed at the tip of his thumb. It took quite a few tried to get it right, so it wouldn't burn your skin off.

His throat burned from the stomach acid. Silently, he sent out a thought to the Noirmort child: _Bring me a glass of water, please. And I'll talk to you, now._ He paused, waiting for a response. Usually, when you sent a thought out, you heard the person's own in response.

All he got was a low whispering sound in return. More than one voice, and only one of them he was sure belonged to Gabriel. The whispers jumbled and overlapped one another. Jason couldn't be sure the kid had even heard him through all the noise of the thoughts in his own head.

"Stop thinking and hear me," he grumbled. "And damn the water—strong vodka, if it's to be anything." He felt his strong emotions subsiding. Shock. Shock was good.

* * *

Gabriel felt oddly calm. He had gotten all of his horror out of him inside the mirrored room, and what was left was the calmness. He knew what would happen, and knew the way to stop it. There was one conscious thought in his head: protect her. 

He would do so gladly. Besides, she had promised him she wouldn't leave the grounds. As long as she didn't, everything would turn our fine.

"Why don't we move it a month ahead?" he suggested in reply. "Early December, or so. If you think we can get our normal lives on track in that amount of time, that is. We can have the wedding in the ballroom—it'll be too cold to have it outside in the snow. For you, that is."

She smiled. "You never know—maybe it'll be too cold for you, soon. Smile?"

He did, already knowing what she's noticed. His fangs were being replaced by teeth, and fairly rapidly. All that remained were his sharp eyeteeth and incisors. It was from being close to her, he knew. On one hand, he was happy—euphoric—knowing that he'd be human in maybe less than a month, with the way things were going.

On the other, he knew he'd have to avoid her quite a bit, at least until after mid-November. If he were human _before _then…

It would be worth loosing time with her to prevent that.

"I thought you were looking a bit less fangy!"

Gabriel continued to grin. "A bit less frightening, now?"

She sighed and shoved him good-naturedly. "I'm sorry if it hurts your ego at all, but you were never scary in the least. Maybe to Giles, but then, I distinctly remember him wetting his pants as a child because he found a dead beetle in his drink." She pushed the library doors open. "We're here!"

Allie and Kal sat on the library's couch. The very colorful stranger sat in a chair. He beamed when he saw Gabriel and pushed his spectacles up with his finger. "You must be Gabriel! My, you've grown since I've last seen you! How old are you now?"

Gabriel bowed politely, trying to mask his confusion at the man who seemed a bit overly fond of the color violet. "Not quite twenty-eight, Monsieur…?"

"Herbert, my name is!"

"He just decided this when he came here," Allie spoke up dryly. "Apparently, he changes his name a lot."

Herbert nodded in agreement. "I've been Georges, Richard, Juan, Vincere, Bradach, Connor, Adiran…I've lost track of more names. Please, don't let me ramble on so much—and please sit down, I'm getting a crick in my neck from looking up at you."

Gabriel and Elizabeth took a seat opposite to Kal and Allie. "How do you know me?" Gabriel asked.

"Oh, I helped out your parents with one of their projects a while back! A room with mirrors, or something of the like. You couldn't have been more than a week or two old…tell me, when did your parents pass on?"

"I don't know if they have."

Herbert cocked his head tot eh side in a quizzical manner. His purple longcoat was unbuttoned; under it he wore a pair of worn brown trousers and a beige shirt, both patched with bright squares of all colors. His hat rested on a table next to him, his hair for the moment tied back with a hank of wool. "Do tell! And, if it's not too much trouble, could you work in as to how you're so furry? I remember you as looking quite human when you were a babe!"

Gabriel sighed and prepared to tell the story for the umpteenth time.

* * *

Kal excused himself halfway through. Or, rather, Allie sent him out. She'd remembered that she had left one of her nightgowns back at their house. 

_-…and I just remembered that I forgot it now, and since we'll be here longer, it'll get colder, and the nightgowns I packed aren't _that_ warm_, she told him silently. _And you, dear, wouldn't want me catching cold, do you?-_

**_-the way you always smother me at night, I'd have thought you were warm enough-_**

-_Very funny. Can you get it for me? Please?-_

**_-right now?-_**

_-Well, it's already getting late in the day—_

**_-it's not even six!-_**

_--and it's about to rain. Maybe it'll freeze, the way it's cooling down, and I don't want you flying in weather like that!-_

**_-but flying all the way to Paris, to fetch a stupid nightshirt, is perfectly fine-_**

_-Thank you.-_

He went back to their room to leave his shirt (it really was annoying when he was flying fast) and left via the window. It was already starting to drizzle.

_Just perfect,_ he thought in equal parts annoyance and relief. Good cloud cover meant he didn't have to bother with calling up a fog. He flew above the clouds (the air was thinner, but still perfectly breathable for him) at a pace a bit slower than his normal suicidal speed. His wings were fine, but the rest of his body was aching. It actually felt good to stretch his wings; having them inside your back day in and out really cramped them up.

Even a bi slower than usual, he made it to their home in an hour and a half. After dipping under the clouds to check that there were no annoying humans watching (it always seemed to cause a bit of an uproar if there was), he pulled into a dive, landing neatly on the front walk. He dug his key out of his pocket, and frowned when it locked the door instead of unlocking it. They had made _sure_ to check it was locked—Allie had made him turn around when they were halfway to the castle, thinking she had forgotten to. He unlocked it and kicked it open, dropping his human-illusion (which he had added to—now it covered his ears and fangs and claws as well as his skin).

"Alright, you bastards, come on out!" he growled in Kohm'kiiten. He could smell the scent they had left well enough to know that they were all human…strangely familiar, too.

"Ah, Kalendrakk! I was wondering when you were going to come back to your house," a man said in clumsy but adequate Kohm'kiiten. He stepped out of Kal's room, a bright smile on his face. He was a slight man, not very tall, and white as a sheet, but nonetheless gave off the sense he was used to being listened to and obeyed. "You must forgive me, but I'm so_curious _about you and Allie!"

"_You_ must forgive me, but I'm going to disembowel you." Kal held up one hand in front of him. "I'll give you a choice, _drozen-t'ru—_should I rip out your throat, or your intestines?"

He showed a flicker of fear. "You don't have to be so hostile. It's only you an I here—no reason we can't have a polite chat--"

"Then where are the rest of the maggots I smell?"

"Out." He smiled again. "Taking care of some business." He made a motion with his hand, gesturing to a chair at the kitchen table. "Why don't you sit down?"

Kal realized that the human was trying to cast a spell on him, and felt something like a hand tugging him forward by his chest.

* * *

Pictures of Herbert can be found on my deviantArt. 

http://l-scarborough. deviantart. com******************  
**


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: You're all awesome. (puppy eyes).

…

(Blatant flattery)

…just_ one_ little review?

Thank you again for your patience waiting for this _xiekklan _chapter to be written and posted. I really did make an effort to finish it sooner, but that_ kiiyeno_ writer's block seems to have set up residence in my head.

Happy (though just a tad belated) Solchriskawanzikah, but remember, Festivas is for the rest of us.

Also, Happy New Year! Woohoo!

"There you go, hiding behind a smokescreen of bourgeois clichés."

-Ringo Starr/Richard Starkey, "A Hard Day's Night"

* * *

Kidnapping brought you down a few levels. It didn't matter that she was noble-born, immortal, and far above the task ahead of her, or that, in her ocean-side manor in Spain, she had dozens of servants to cater to her every need. In sticking to the plan, Jacqueline was stuck with wading through mud and twigs and dead weeds like a common farmer.

"It wouldn't have caused that much noise to have at least a horse to ride," she muttered, keeping her voice low despite her discontentment.

Her twin sighed and pulled her dress free of a patch of brambles. "We have to be quite if we're to beat Giles there—if he hears us, he'll hurry up to catch us. We have to beat him there—quietly—and lock the side door."

Jacqueline made an approving noise in spite of herself. "He is quite a looker, you have to admit."

"You're engaged. Besides that, he's much too young for you."

She shrugged and re-adjusted her hair, taking the time to pick out a few dead leaves that had gotten caught. "There's no harm in looking, you filthy hypocrite."

Michelle made a hushing noise, and both stopped. After a moment, she waved her hand dismissively. "Thought I heard…it was just a deer, never mind."

"Do you know what I think?"

"No."

"I think we should just let the fop kill him. Our sibling was_ never_ one of us, even before the incident with Jason. Who's to say he'll cooperate? He never did as a child. You, of all people, know that—how many times did you whip him before he did what he was told?"

"This is different," she insisted. "This time, he _will_ do whatever we say—as a matter of fact, I think he'll _jump_ to do it."

"And how can you be so sure?" Jacqueline stopped and leaned against a tree, catching her breath. She was in good enough shape, but not used to hiking such as this.

Michelle scoffed. "There's the peasant wench."

"I still don't think a _girl_ can convince him to come with us—I certainly wouldn't care if it were me in his place."

"That's the difference between brother-dearest and us," she explained, continuing on. Jacqueline followed with a grumble. "He'd jump into hell—_happily_—if it meant sparing her from a similar fate."

"So…he's an idiot."

"Of course he is, and that is our advantage, Jacqueline. _Now_ do you agree with our plan?"

"I suppose." In an undertone, she added "I still think it would be a lot easier to charm a peasant into doing it."

Michelle heard her, even though she was in the lead. She had ears like a cat, a trait Jacqueline sometimes cursed her (silently) for. "You're right, it would be—and think of all the time it would save us!"

"My point exactly!"

Michelle tossed her hair angrily and glared at her twin over her shoulder. "We'd fail in the end! We'd be _annihilated!_ Taking our dear little freakish brother is going to cost us time, but _it is necessary_!"

"Fine," Jacqueline muttered, put off. "I still think--"

"It'll work like a charm. You'll see."

* * *

****

Kal grumbled inwardly at the next chore he realized he'd have to do. This noble (a glimpse into his mind told him that he was Gabriel's father) would most likely have to be killed, and efficiently. He'd have to go to all the trouble of burying or burning the body—boring, tedious work.

"Why aren't you moving?"

"You're a weak little bastard, that's all. I bet I could have cast a stronger spell when I was still wet behind the ears." Kal stepped forward and cracked his knuckles. "Have you decided yet? Evisceration? Decapitation? I'm in a good mood today—I could snap your neck, quick and easy. No?"

He paled considerably, taking on a skin tone that was nearly ghostlike. Claude was beginning to realize, Kal guessed, that his relationship with Allie hadn't diminished his bloodlust any. Not enough for Claude's purposes, anyway. "This doesn't have to end in bloodshed."

"I like bloodshed." Kal leaned on the table with one hand, close enough that he could easily kill him if he wished. "Tell me one thing, though: why the fuck were you stupid enough to break into my house? Glutton for punishment, are you?"

Claude shrugged elegantly. His was still nervous—his heartbeat was nearly deafening—but for all that, not a hair was out of place. "It's a family matter. We simply needed a place to stay. The details are none of your business."

"I guess they don't matter, if I'm going to strew your guts from one end of the room to the other."

"Are you, know?" He grinned smugly and a second later, a rather theatrical flash of light obscured Kal's vision—not that it was that big of a handicap, as he had spent the better part of a year, but in the time it took for him to process what was happening, Claude was gone.

"Cute trick." He blinked the spots out of his eyes and moved on to examine the house. No possessions that didn't belong to him or Allie were there, but the scent of Claude and three others was still there. _Should have just killed him the second I saw him, instead of chatting. I am getting soft, damn it._ Grumbling to himself, he went along the borders of all the rooms until he had laid down enough wards to ensure that the only ones coming back into the house would be himself and Allie. He threw her nightgown into his old leather traveling sack, considered, and then folded a heavy winter cloak and shoved that in on top of it. There wasn't much, in his opinion, more annoying than a bad cold. It was a waste of healing charms, but if you left it alone, it would go on for days. And when the Princess caught cold, she snored even worse.

Since he had been adopted as her personal pillow, he didn't look forward to having her sneeze all over him, either. It'd be best just to bring winter clothes.

He sighed when he opened the door. It wasn't raining; it was _pouring. _The wind had picked up as well, making matters worse. Kal grumbled and slung the bag over his back, tying it into place in the middle where his wings wouldn't destroy it, and walked grudgingly out of the dry house into the rainstorm. He locked it from the outside with a simple spell and took off. Within seconds he was soaked, and his old injuries seemed to moan at him for putting them through the punishment of flying in the cold rain. Summer storms weren't as bad; late autumn was hell.

"That's what I get," he grumbled aloud. _It just takes a handful of broken bones and torn muscles, and you're about as comfortable as an arthritic old man!_ To keep his mind busy, he touched the link between his and Allie's minds.

_**-on my way back, you spoilt little Princess- **_he announced. _**–how goes things with the guests?-**_

She sent him a mental image of Herbert, sitting back comfortably in his chair and nibbling on a sweet that Ella had undoubtedly brought him. A wide, childish grin covered his face. –He's_ doing fine, at least—I think I heard something from the room Jason's in.-_

_**-something?-**_

_-I think he's trying to get our attention—Gabriel and Liz haven't noticed it yet. I'm going to go in and check on him soon, after Ella and Fraya have fixed him some lunch.-_

_**-you're not going anywhere near that slimy aristocratic bastard until I get back, Princess. I don't trust the little kiiyen-**_

_-You don't trust anybody. He's near harmless, Kal—besides, I can defend myself, as you well know.-_

_**-heh. How many times have I had to save your soft head from being cut off?-**_

_-Two can play at that game, Kalendrakk. Just trust me on this—Jason won't hurt me. He doesn't even have any memory of me, not as I am now, anyway. Like I said, he's near harmless.-_

**-near-**

_-Stop your worrying. Did you lock up the house?-_

Kal gnawed his lower lip in annoyance and proceeded to tell her about Claude. _**-…and I can't be sure where he went—or how he got away, for that matter-**_

_-Oh dear. You don't think they're coming here, are they?-_

_**-I hadn't thought of that. You be on guard until I get there—just forget about Jason. It's not like he'll try to burn the castle down-**_

* * *

****

"Do I have to burn the gods-damned castle down to get somebody's attention?" Jason growled, pacing the room. He had shoved his grief to the side for the moment, letting his annoyance and frustration take over. He hit the heavy door with a fist, shouting aloud as well as with his mind. "Somebody get over here!"

_-Calm down,- _a calm girl's voice instructed him. He recognized it dimly as Allison's. He remembered her voice as angry and commanding. He could also remember the sound she had made when he cut her throat open. _–I'll be at your door in ten minutes, with some lunch and a drink. Then we can talk.-_

Jason raked his fingers through his hair, combing out snarls. He caught his reflection in an oval mirror that hung from the wall, and realized he looked horrible: his lips were cracked and bleeding, his hair was a rat's nest, and his bloodshot eyes looked out from sockets dark enough to have been inked on. He looked insane.

A simple bit of glamour took care of it, leaving him nine minutes to pace the room intimidatingly and dizzyingly until the girl came. He hoped on an absent level that the drink she had mentioned would be something a bit stronger than water. In a corner, the clock ticked off the minutes, loudly. He ignored the urge to blast it to pieces the best he could.

Fifteen minutes had passed. He sat heavily in the arm chair, disgruntled. He was unaccustomed to having to wait for simple, mundane things such as food and drink to come; in his house, they arrived exactly on schedule. Goblin servants were too frightened to do other than follow his orders; humans, it seemed, lacked this trait. Even a young human girl that had almost been killed by him in the past. He had thought, for some time, he had killed her, for he had no reason to doubt it. What were the chances of a human surviving from a slit throat?

Said human walked in the door without knocking, a tray of food in her hands. She shut the door behind her with her foot and stood in place for a moment, looking at him. "Hello, Jason," she said, and set the tray down on a small table. A brass coffee pot sat next to the food, and the combined smell was enough to make his mouth water. When was the last time he had eaten? He certainly hadn't, all those months ago, after his failed attempt at suicide. He couldn't remember having anything after then.

He kept his composure and silently ordered his stomach to keep quiet, and acknowledged her with a nod. It was all he could do to keep his eyes from wandering away from her face to the tray on the table. "Mademoiselle Destra...unless you've gotten married in the past months."

"I haven't." A cross look fluttered across her face. He could only assume she was upset about her lack of relationships, because there was a barrier in her mind that blocked her thoughts from his.

"How is Kalendrakk fairing? Is he still your lapdog?"

"He's in good health—and he was never my lapdog."

"Well, I'm glad to see everything is all and well with you two. Have Gabriel and Elizabeth had their wedding yet?"

Allie frowned and sat down on a footstool, still a safe distance away. "Are you…well in the head, now?"

"Yes, I've regained my memory, if that's what you're enquiring." He leaned forward, balancing his forearms on his legs. "I would like to apologize. For all the trouble I've caused."

Allie seemed to relax a bit. "Your apology's accepted by me, but I'm not so sure about my friends. You did a lot more than cause a street brawl, you know. We've been discussing whether or not to let you live."

_I should have been expecting that, I guess, even from a group of children. _"And?"

"Two against, two for." She crossed her legs and plucked at the cloth of her skirt. "Not that it really matters—I don't think any of us would really kill you, if you're really no threat. It may be a while until we can trust you, though."

Jason leaned back. It was incredibly humiliating to know he was being held captive by people not even half his age. "How long are you children going to keep me here?"

"I guess it all depends." She got to her feet, fidgeting with her hands. "Do you…really remember everything?"

"Yes."

Allie nodded shortly and turned. "I'll leave you to eat, then," she said, as if guessing his thoughts. Before closing the door, she glanced over her should. "I'm sorry that Marie died. It must be hard for you."

He scoffed after she closed the door and waved the tray over to where he sat, ordering it to hover in place. "I'm sure you are," he muttered, digging into the food.

He hadn't forgotten how hard she'd kicked him two years previous.

* * *

****

Giles made it to the castle in one piece, with a few scratches and bruises from the forest; the worst he'd gotten was a nasty scratch near his eye from one of the thorns near the door. His hair was tied back with a spare piece of string, and in his heavy coat pocket was a pistol.

"See if you run away from me _this_ time," he said in an undertone, picking his way across the courtyard. It was completely silent, the rain making the only noise. No voices carried out from inside the castle, and there were no lights lit in the windows that were visible from his standing. He took a deep breath and hurried up; he was getting wet. He also had the strangest feeling that he was being watched. It went away after he slipped into the entrance hall and closed the door behind him.

The stairs were tedious. He took the middle staircase, and ended up walking for quite a while before realizing he couldn't hear any voices. So, he retraced his steps, and took the right staircase, only to experience more of the same. He grumbled, went back, and took the left staircase. It would have been a lot easier, had he known the layout of the castle. Who was to say they weren't on the top floor? That would explain for the quiet….

He got lucky; after walking for five minutes down the third floor in the West wing, he began to hear voices and laughter. He drew his pistol and began walking carefully; if they heard him beforehand, it would cause more trouble.

Giles stopped outside of the doors, and listened. He focused intently enough on the sounds inside the doors that he didn't hear the sounds from behind him.

"…and that is why you should never ride a donkey whilst you're drunk," an unfamiliar voice was saying, to the laughter of others.

He opened the door and stepped in.

* * *

Herbert, once he had finished most of the coffee the Noirmort had offered him (he politely turned down the wine—as a rule, he didn't drink after dark), took to entertaining his hosts. He preformed his usual tricks (trifles such as making pigeons appear out of a balled up scarf and the like), and progressed on to storytelling. He had a talent for telling stories, one he'd inherited from his mother. He enjoyed talking just as much as he did performing, and through all his travels, he picked up a nearly limitless supply of amusing incidents and tales.

The Noirmort child (now an adult) and his fiancée were laughing, as was himself, when three things happened simultaneously: Allie came in through one door, Kal climbed in through one of the windows, and a stranger walked in through another and shot at Gabriel.

* * *

A/N: A little bit of an unsatisfying chapter, I'll admit, but it had signifigance to the next chappie---which will be posted as soon as I can manage to write it. 


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Aye, Giles is indeed a butthead.

I promise to do my best to update earlier. I'm not forgetting—it just seems to take a while to force the chappie out of my head and onto Microsoft Word. Word by word. With the aid of lots of coffee and other caffeinated products.

Oh, and the Bridge of D'Arnath series by Carol Berg is really, really good. They're fairly recent fantasy books—check your libraries and bookstores! Seriously. They are awesome.

"I am not a crook."

-Richard Nixon

* * *

Gabriel had been expecting an intrusion into his home—he had seen that much—but Giles coming into the library caught him off-guard. He looked up as the gun went off, taken by surprise, only to have a daisy fall neatly into his lap. He picked it up; it was hot.

Herbert exhaled. "Thank the Fates that worked!" he exclaimed, calling on deities Gabriel wasn't familiar with. "Ah…Mademoiselle? Are you alright?"

Elizabeth, who had gone pale, nodded slightly. "Just waiting for my heart to start up," she said in a shaky voice.

Kal walked across the room and pinned Giles to the wall. "I told you all we should have just killed the little fop." When Giles aimed the gun at his head, he snatched it away and tossed it out the still-open window.

Allie was staring in disbelief at the daisy Gabriel held. "What charm did you use to do that?"

He shrugged. "Magicians never reveal their tricks, as a rule."

Kal, meanwhile, was carrying a squirming Giles across the room to join the pistol.

Gabriel got to his feet. "Don't." It only took him a few strides to get to the window and pull it shut. "There's no need to waste his life."

"Wouldn't be much of a waste in my opinion," Kal argued, and tightened his hand around his captives throat. Giles's eyes bulged. "How many times has he tried to kill you? Twice, now?"

"Four times," Elizabeth spoke up as she joined them.

"Trust me. He won't do it again." Gabriel had to bite his tongue past that. No, Giles couldn't die.

He glanced quickly at the clock hanging on the wall. It was a quarter to two o'clock. _Can't die, not quite yet._ Gabriel hadn't seen Giles's murder attempt when he had been inside the room, but now that he was here, what he had seen made much more sense.

Soon, everything would go as it was supposed to.

He saw that Giles had lost consciousness. "Just…put him in that chair, over there." He gestured to a spindly chair in the far corner of the room. "He won't gain consciousness for…a while."

Kal gave him an odd look, but went and set him down (not at all gently—in fact, probably hard enough to bruise) in the chair.

"I'm getting the feeling that this type of occurrence is usual," Herbert remarked, fiddling with his glasses.

Elizabeth flopped down on the couch and puffed at an errant lock of hair that fell into her face. "Your feeling is right. We may as well tear off the doors for all the good they do. While we're at it, we could hang a 'bien-venu' sign on the wall and put signposts through the path in the woods. And why not place a barrel of torches and pitchforks in the entrance hall?"

Gabriel sat next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He didn't have much time until he would have to leave, and he knew it would be a long while before he had the chance to be close to her. "Everything will go back to normal soon enough, ange," he assured her. "I--"

"Don't promise!" She exclaimed. "Every time you promise me something, the exact opposite happens."

Kal, leaning against the wall near Giles, grinned. "You're just a little bad luck charm, aren't you, Sticks? You want to know the cure for that? Take a couple of people and string 'em up on the castle wall. That way, people will stay away. You just have to show them that you'll kill them slowly, and they'll leave you alone. Hardly anyone bothers me anymore."

"Except numerous immortal assassins," Allie reminded him, rolling her eyes.

"That's only because you're a wimp, Princess. How much trouble d'you think I had before you came along, eh?"

"If I remember correctly, you were the one that--"

Herbert held up his hand and waved it slightly. "I'm guessing I'm missing something. What?"

Allie picked up their book from the table where Elizabeth and Gabriel have left it. "Why don't you read this, then? It seems everyone else knows about us."

"But I wouldn't go trading gossip around, if I were you," Kal added. Herbert grinned and flapped his hand absently.

"I don't get a chance much for gossiping. I collect it when I can, though. It's very interesting how people gather and give out information, you know…"

Elizabeth sighed and sat up slightly. "Well, Allie? Is Jason still alive?"

She opened her mouth to answer, and a small orb of water flew over their heads and hit her in the face. "Kal!" she sputtered, wiping her face on her skirts. "What's the idea?" She glared at Herbert, who burst into open laughter; Elizabeth and Gabriel managed to choke down their amusement.

Kal's arms were crossed, showing no evidence of magicking the water. "I thought I told you to wait until I got back, kiiyen!"

"There's nothing to worry about—he's fine. Mentally, I mean. It seems he's regained his memory; he apologized for everything."

"Well, that sounds alright to me. Apologies are always good." Herbert scratched his head, frowning. "Now, Jason was the one who--"

"Ruined all our lives?" Elizabeth interrupted. "Yes, that's the one."

Herbert beamed. "Then all the better he's apologized!"

"Or," Gabriel spoke up, "brought us all together, hm?" He offered a tentative smile to Elizabeth.

Kal rubbed a hand over his face. "Do you ever listen to yourself, Sticks? You sound like a sentimental old granny."

Gabriel laughed, glancing at the clock as he did. "Ah, well…" He worked his signet ring off of his finger and turned it over in his fingers. Soon, not yet.

* * *

****

Elizabeth didn't become aware until Giles snored that all of the conversation had dropped off into a dozy kind of silence. When she consulted the clock, it read five after three; an hour had passed by without her noticing. Herbert had dozed off with his chin resting in the hollow of his palm; Kal had taken up a seat next to Allie, and she could sense that they were talking through their minds, as if opening their mouths was too great an effort. She craned her neck up. Gabriel was gazing out the window, his human eyes half-lidded. There was a touch of colour in his black lips, and his catlike nose was staring to develop a humanlike bridge. His horns also seemed a touch shorter.

"Did I fall asleep?" she asked. Her words came slowly, and sounded muffled.

"I think the coffee wasn't strong enough." His words too, seemed slow, even for him. "Everyone dozed off for a while." He kept his eyes on a tree outside.

Allie stood up and stretched. "More like cats napping. Maybe it's the rain." She wandered over to the window, stretching her legs. Kal swung his legs up and took up the space she had left.

A small metallic object clattered across the room and came to rest in the corner behind Giles. Gabriel sighed. "How clumsy of me…"

Elizabeth glanced at his hands; both were bare. "Your ring?"

He nodded and started to get up.

"Don't bother, I'm already standing." Allie flapped a hand at him. "I didn't know you had any jewelry."

"It's an old signet ring. I don't wear it often…it's loose on me, you see."

She tiptoed around Giles. "It's a wonder he hasn't waken up already. I guess I'll have to get Kal to--"

"I'm not a horse-carriage!" Kal protested, halfway sitting up. "He can walk back himself! If we're lucky, a wolf will get him."

She rolled her eyes and bent down to pick up Gabriel's ring. "Is this your family crest?"

Elizabeth heard footsteps outside the library and stood. _That'll be Ella, undoubtedly coming to shower our new guest with sweets._

Gabriel pulled her down none to carefully.

"What--?"

An unfamiliar woman opened the door and walked in as if she did so every day. She had a noble air about her, and carried herself well. She couldn't have been more than thirty, her thick black hair falling in waves down to her shoulders.

She stopped halfway to their seat and inclined her head slightly. "Gabriel."

He returned her gesture, and greeted her in a mild voice. "Mother." He laid a hand on Elizabeth's shoulder, silencing her. "I see you're well."

She smiled, her face remote. Kal and Allie both gained their feet slowly. "You have guards, I see. What have you paid them to stay, I wonder?"

Gabriel twisted his head to look at Allie and shook his head. She moved back into the corner and shot a look at Kal, and probably a command with it. Kal's muscles relaxed and his shoulders drooped.

"You seem unsurprised. Were you expecting me?"

"In a way. May I have a moment with my fiancée?"

A muscle in Monique's jaw jumped. "You are to come with us immediately."

For a moment, the expressions of resentment and stubbornness gave them back a family resemblance Jason had taken. "'Us'?" Gabriel echoed. "Who else is here?"

"Your sisters are waiting, in case you choose to give us difficulty." Monique inclined her head towards the doors. "Now, Gabriel."

He didn't move. "One minute." Without waiting for an answer, he steered Elizabeth towards the opposite side of the room.

"What's happening? Why's _she_ here?" Elizabeth held Gabriel's hand hard enough to bruise, but if he was in any discomfort, he showed no sign of it. He knelt down so that they were at eye-level.

"I have to leave for a little while," he murmured, his back to his mother. Her arms were cross and she was glaring at them impatiently. "It shouldn't be over a few months--"

"Months!" Elizabeth fought to keep her voice low. "You can't go! There's no telling what they'll do to you!"

"They won't kill me," he assured her. "I'll come back to you in one piece."

She abandoned the effort to keep their conversation quiet. "You're not going anywhere!" she shouted. "I won't let those vile people take you with them!" She grabbed his wrist, and her hand fit all around it. For all his height, he wasn't much more than a scarecrow.

Monique approached them, deeply annoyed. "Gabriel."

He nodded. His mother muttered something unintelligible, and Elizabeth felt her hand relaxing; her arm; her neck…

He propped her up against the wall and brushed his lips over hers. "January twenty-first," he said, too low for Monique to hear. "Mid-day. Wait for me."

She grabbed weakly at the air, and her eyes fell shut. For a while, darkness was all she knew.

* * *

****

For Herbert, waking came in stages. First, his dream-world began to fade in little bits and pieces; the people became less solid, the wind became nothing more than a ghost tugging at grass, the colours dulled. Sounds imposed themselves over the voices of the dream-people: "I can't", "I don't", "I should,"…voices spiraling down from the real-world, leaves falling into a sketching. Roses and dust and parchment and blood replaced the grass and sea breeze and sunweeds. His neck and back ached.

He opened his eyes and lifted his head off his chest. He had been drooling; he rummaged through his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief, the colour leeched away by thousands of washings and the edges frayed.

People around him. Who were they? Remember. _Feathers and pine, wind and tulips, apple blossoms and hay_. _Match them to the faces, now_….his mind was awkward upon waking, half in his dream-world.

"What have I missed?" He asked…wind and tulips….name, name, name for a copper…Allie. AllieAllie Allison. "Who's hurt?"

Allie indicated an empty chair off to the side with a tilt of her head. The blood had been cleaned away, all but some that had soaked into the wood of the chair. "Giles—the man. Michelle—she's Gabriel's sister—well, she came in to fetch them and her gun went off by accident. Missed me, but Giles was right in front of me. He didn't even wake up."

"Oh." Herbert rubbed sleep from his eyes with the heel of his hand and looked around the room. The other two weren't there; neither was his host. "May I ask…where is everyone?"

He sat through her explanation calmly. He supposed what had happened should bother him, and knew that, when Allie had finished talking, she expected him to offer his help in any way possible. Herbert found it hard to raise any sense of urgency in his head, though, for the young Gabriel. He had went willingly with his parent, had he not? It suggested that there wasn't any danger. He felt pity for his fiancée, but she would be fine. People usually were.

"I will help in any way that is possible," he said after she had stopped for breath, inclining his head slightly. He had gone through this ritual many a time. It didn't matter how he felt about the conflict; his offer usually calmed the person in question down. If the time came and he had to fight, he would help from the sidelines. It wasn't in his manner to get into brawls.

He was just a magician.

Allie exhaled. "Thank you. If you don't mind…I need to go check on Elizabeth. She should be waking up soon. Could you do me a favor?"

"Certainly."

She gave him directions to Jason's room and he went on his way, but not before jamming his hat back on his head. As a rule, he didn't like to leave his articles of clothing around—with his memory, he knew he'd be apt to forget them.

Herbert whistled a tune as he navigated his way through the softly lit corridors. He found the castle a bit dark and gloomy for his liking, but it was alright after some getting used to. _Lucky for me that I found my specs…otherwise, I'd get lost. This place is like a labyrinth_.

"Now, then, would you be M. Jason?" he asked, half-opening the door and peering in. "I'm Herbert, and I've been sent over to keep you company."

A pale, silver-haired man waved him in. He was a bit taller than Herbert—most people were—but far thinner. "You hurt my eyes," he informed him after he had closed the door. "Really, have you no sense of fashion?"

"None whatsoever, my good sir." He sat across from Jason and set his hat down next to him. "The colours make me happy."

Jason raised an eyebrow and proceeded to pour himself coffee from a pitcher. "Mind explaining the shooting?"

"Oh, from what I understand, it was an accident. The young Noirmort's gone back with his parents, so I've heard, and it makes everyone quite upset."

"He what?" Jason froze with the cup halfway to his mouth. "Now why on earth would he do that?"

Herbert shrugged. "I haven't a clue. I don't really know Gabriel, or any of the others, so I can't guess."

He narrowed his eyes and examined Herbert. "You're not from here, are you, boy? No, that's not right; you're older than you act."

"I'm from a lot of different places." He sneezed when Jason's magic passed over him. "Must you do that?"

"Human, so far as I can tell," Jason muttered to himself. "And you don't seem to age as humans do. And you don't even have a drop of magic in your blood."

Herbert, now braiding a section of his violently colored hair, hummed in a way he though conveyed his interest. Lots of sorcerers puzzled over him; he had long been used to it.

Jason rested his chin in the hollow of his palm, appearing to ponder something. At length, he returned his attention back to the magician. "You wouldn't happen to have _any_ idea about what the Noirmorts are up to, hmm?"

"Haven't spoken to them in a decade."

"And, so far as you know, they're still looking for you, aren't they? You had a different face on all those years ago when you first came here. They have no idea where you are?"

Herbert glanced up briefly. "Reading minds is very rude, M. Jason. And it makes my head itch."

"Sorry. Habit. It's just…incredible. Actually meeting a…what did they use to call them?"

He started on another handful of hair, weaving the strands over and under. "Jumpers, wasn't it? That was long before your time, Monsieur. Do you want that sugar bowl, M. Jason?"

"No." It floated up from the plate and into Herbert's outstretched hand. He scooped up a spoonful and ate it, marveling in the way the crystals dissolved on his tongue. "That's rather disgusting, if you don't mind me saying."

"Hm." Herbert licked the spoon clean and grinned. "I think it's delicious."

"Jumpers," Jason scoffed. "All of you are the oddest creatures. Does anyone in this castle know about your talent?"

"No." Herbert ate another spoonful of sugar, crunching it between his teeth. "I'm just a magician, you know. Ordinary. I can't help them at all."

"Of course."

* * *

A/N: A little confusing. It'll all be explained it the next chappie. 


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Another late chapter. Boo.

Well, I figured out how to end the story, so I suppose it'll be easier to finish. If you have any ideas to add to the story, speak now so I can work 'em into the plot.

"SUPPORT MENTAL HEALTH OR I'LL KILL YOU."

-bumper sticker

* * *

Gabriel wasn't sure how far they traveled, or where it was when they arrived at sunset. All he could tell was that they were in the countryside, and the sky had cleared.

"You can sleep over there." His sister Michelle gestured to a shady oak tree, most of its leaves fallen. "And you'd better sleep the night through; you'll need your rest."

"I appreciate your concern," he said wryly.

"Sarcasm's never suited you. Go to sleep or I'll knock you unconscious."

Gabriel leaned against the trunk of the tree, and watched his family with half-lidded eyes. They slept far apart from each other, in individual canvas tents. Curious that they hadn't aged, but he didn't trouble his mind over it.

He didn't know what they wanted him for, and that troubled him. All he knew was that he wouldn't die from it, and that was a comfort. For all he knew, they wanted him to be their watchdog. They'd even given him a leash; when he stood and tried to walk five feet from the tree, he met an invisible wall.

He curled up at the base of the tree, drawing his knees to his chest, and tried to sleep. He had spent his entire life sleeping on a soft mattress with a pillow, and the lumpy ground was cold. He found it ironic that a creature like himself couldn't be comfortable sleeping on the ground, having a tail and everything.

Time passed and the stars moved overhead, the silence broken up by the oak leaves rattling and an occasional owl. His eyes drooped, and his mind drifted from his current situation to all manners of things. He thought about Elizabeth with her hair dripping wet from the snow, and the piano concerto he'd been working on for their wedding. He thought about Rose with her bronze leg and his roses that bloomed year round. For the first time in his life, he was homesick.

* * *

****

Jason found himself forgetting all his headaches with all the business that was going on. Herbert—so he called himself—had the mentality of a child, but was one of the most fascinating people he'd met in a long time.

Jumpers (that wasn't their official name, but only a title given to them) were humans or immortals able to move between this world and another one entirely, what demons referred to as the "home country". This gift was extremely rare, only one in every two million. Usually, only their conscious minds traveled to the parallel world, leaving the physical body behind in the "real" world.

"Tell me again where you go when you sleep."

Herbert shrugged. "Home."

Jason gestured impatiently for him to elaborate, wondering if the very purple man was trying to aggravate him on purpose. "And? Where is it?"

His eyebrows knotted together in concentration. "I think I saw a map of it once…. It's an island, just off the southern borders of the Eastern kingdom. Not very exciting."

"How do you get there?"

He shrugged. He had moved over to the couch, and was slumped in it with his boots resting on the mahogany table in front of him. "I visit my friends when I sleep, that's all. We talk."

"About?"

"Oh, I don't know…" He puffed at a lock of hair, and brushed it out of his face when it fell back into place. "Everything, really. How the fishing is going for the fishmongers, and if the merchants had brought a new spice for sale, or if the botanists have managed to come up with a rose that wouldn't kill."

"I beg your pardon?"

Herbert looked at him oddly. "Roses. You know, how if you touch them, they'll wrap their vines around your arm and bleed you dry. You have to be very respectful of roses; easily offended, you know."

_Fascinating. _"What else is different?"

He shrugged and stood up, his knees popping. "It's…just this, but brighter. Do you mind if I go off to bed, Jason? I'm tired. I traveled quite a ways to get here, you know."

Jason made a consenting motion with a wave of his hand, but questioned him as he reached the door. "Brighter how? I don't understand you."

Herbert considered it for a moment, frowning. "I don't know. Sometimes, it seems like…like all _this--"_ he flung his arms out wide; Jason wasn't sure if he was trying to indicate the room, the castle, or the entire world. "—is old paintings and stale bread and yellowed grass and dying trees, and _there--"_ he tapped his head, "—is…brighter. The plants and rocks…they…" He threw up his arms in exasperation, but with a good-natured grin on his face. "I'm bad at explaining things." He crammed his hat on his head and had his hand on the doorknob when suddenly he spun around, his unbuttoned coat billowing out around him. "There's more of what _you _do, and less of what _I_ do!" he exclaimed with a triumphant laugh.

Jason flicked through the images at the front of Herbert's head, making an apology when the magician sneezed and scratched at his head through his hat: images of people lighting candles with a snap of their fingers, creating illusions, disappearing, changing weather, making objects fly through the air.

"You mean that there are more people with magical talents?"

He nodded. "Not _everyone_—not even _half_ of everyone—but it's everywhere. And more people_like_ you—blood-wise. Now, I'm sorry, but if I don't get into a bed soon, I'll doze off on my feet. _Bon nuit_, M. Jason."

He sat back in his chair, finishing the sickeningly sweet dregs of his coffee. There had been scholars like himself, dozens of them, that thought it was possible that there were entire worlds—_universes_—parallel to their own. His old friend (dead now for years) had thought of it as a mirror, but a skewed one with rippled glass.

"But see, Jason," Rene had said one night, pulling out a square mirror from one of his desk drawers (overflowing with junk; Rene had been a slob when it came to organizing his notes), "people can't go through mirrors." He prodded the reflective surface with a callused finger. "People _or_ us—it just goes against nature. Imagine what it would be like if we could? Chaotic, simply chaotic."

Jason sat with the tick-tock of the clock for company, long into the night. When he finally drifted off to sleep in front of the fireplace, he dreamed of a world that was "brighter".

* * *

****

As if buying violin strings wasn't hard enough for him, Kal had to go halfway across the country to a "specialty" store (meaning one that had immortal-made, spelled, and other magical items for sale) to spend a ridiculously large amount of money to replace the single broken string. He really didn't have the right to complain about the price, as he stole the money off of a rich viscount on his way in.

He'd first gone out to try and find Gabriel. After two hours, he gave up; it was likely that he and his family were indoors, and even if they weren't, it wouldn't be out in the open. Tracking spells were always an option, but his skills at that were a beginner, at the least.

After the search turned to be futile and he picked up his string, he managed to arrive (somewhat quietly) at the castle a little past midnight. He muffled the squealing of the window with a charm, but he needn't have bothered; Allie was sitting up in bed, reading an old spell book she'd discovered in the library. Though she was maybe a quarter of the way through it, she appeared to have been sitting there for a while. She had already changed into her nightclothes, and her hair was mussed in the front from her combing her hand through it, a habit she had when she was trying to read anything more challenging than a romance novel.

"No luck," Kal said, not needing for her to voice her question aloud. "You're up late."

She yawned and set the book aside, marking the page with a ribbon. "I was sitting up with Elizabeth for a while…she's pretty upset. Fraya took over for me, and I fell asleep for maybe fifteen minutes._ Then_ Herbert came into my room, asking if I could show him to a room." She grinned lopsidedly. "It turns out that Liz's room was originally a guest-room made up for him, back when he was staying at the castle. So after I found Ella to help us clean the room and got that out of the way, I tried to read this book, but I couldn't keep my mind on it."

Kal pulled his violin out from under the bed and took it out of its case to restring it. "I covered maybe half of France today, probably a little more, before I realized that I wouldn't find Gabriel and his lot just sitting in an open field. It was a complete waste—and, since we can't go into every house, we'd need tracking spells, which none of us can accomplish. I'm starting to think that we should just wait for him to come back by himself. He's managed pretty well by himself before." The chore finished, he polished his fingerprints off of the glassy, black wood and returned it to its spot. Tonight, all he wanted to do was sleep. It seemed that every time their lives took a turn for the better, someone had to show up and make trouble for them—just when he was getting used to "normal" life, too.

Allie sighed and rubbed her slightly bloodshot eyes. "I don't know…it would feel like abandoning him, but…well, we should ask Liz before any decisions are made. It's her that's affected the most…this is the second time she's lost him like this."

"Huh. You'd figure she'd be used to it by now." Kal, removing his boots and socks, missed the scathing look Allie gave him, but knew her well enough to guess. He grabbed the worn breeches he used in place of normal nightclothes (he found the idea of wearing a nightshirt both laughable and mildly repulsive, like a man wearing a dress) and went to the adjoining bathroom to change. As he did, he avoided the mirror that hung from the wall. Mirrors still bothered him, for reasons he didn't know. "Half-joking," he said hastily, sitting on the edge of the bed.

She grabbed a handful of his hair and jerked it. "_Only_ half? Are you _heartless_?"

He quickly retrieved his hair and moved out of arm's reach; knowing her, she'd try to braid it. "When you're freaks like us--"

"_Us_?"

"—yes, us, you freakishly happy abomination of nature," he continued, "you should get used to things like this. If I were her, I'd be expecting something like this."

Allie shifted closer and grabbed another handful of hair, yanking his head back to look at her. "And how any times have you allowed me to be kidnapped, hm? Filthy hypocrite! And you had better have felt _something—_otherwise, you're sleeping on the floor."

"Stop that, will you?" Grudgingly, she relaxed her hand. Kal liked his hair long—since shirts were inconvenient, it hid the worst of the scars that were on his back, and kept the sun of it when he walked—but it was reasons like this that made him wonder if he should trim it. "All I'm saying is that there's a point where emotions get in the way of reasonable thinking, and they make the problem worse. And you can read my mind, Princess, so you know I won't be sleeping on the floor."

"You're not right all the time, you know," she grumbled after a moment. "But people…they just can't _shelve_ their emotions. It's unnatural." She sighed and burrowed under the covers on her side of the bed. "It's been a long day. I'm going to sleep."

"Unless there's anything her Highness needs me to do--"

"No more witty comments for the night, you crow, just go to sleep."

* * *

****

Four o'clock sharp, in the morning. It was one of those times when Elizabeth woke up and couldn't fall back asleep. It wasn't that she wasn't tired (she was exhausted), but her eyes simply didn't want to close. She decided that if she lay in bed another minute, the ticking from the clock on the wall would drive her out of her mind…everything else was so quiet.

She rolled out of bed and put her bare feet into her slippers, then, straightening her nightgown, padded out of the room in a half-awake daze. Nearly all of the scones were unlit, save for a few. She bumped into more than one wall in the gloom, but then, she wasn't walking fast, so she didn't injure herself any.

The balcony doors in Gabriel's room were slightly ajar, either from the wind or from forgetfulness. Making her way around crumpled wads of music scores, she went to close them, and stopped. The sky was clear, and though the moon wasn't out (that she could see), the stars were as bright as ever. She leaned against the wall and watched the sky dazedly for a while in the cold air. She thought on a distant level that she would probably catch cold, but put the thought aside. She stared at the sky until her eyelids began to droop, and then went inside, taking care to latch the doors behind her. There wasn't a fire in Gabriel's room, as he never had the need for one, but the bed had warm blankets. She curled up under them, catlike, and fell asleep. _Maybe, in the morning, all of this will be fixed…_

* * *

****

"…_so you see, it's all very upsetting," Herbert said, finishing his recount of the day to his friends. "For the children, you know."_

"_Oh, I'd imagine so," Marten replied offhandedly. He had an old canvas sack filled with stale bread, and through a handful of pieces into the sky for the gulls to catch. His pale green skin looked less sickly in the bright afternoon light, and when Herbert visited Marten and Terran, it was always noon. Marten brushed back his thick green-gold hair absently. "Should we help the poor dears?"_

"_Can't imagine how we could." Terran sat up and brushed away a few clinging blades of grass from his arms. His skin was the colour of cinnamon bark, and his short curly hair was the orange of fall leaves. "Doesn't seem much right-like, no, not to me. Going 'gainst the tall one's will, wouldn't it be? And, and—they be over in the other world."_

_Marten laughed as a pair of the gulls squabbled over the bread. "I'd guess that one of the old mirrors would work."_

"_Old mirrors?" Herbert echoed. "Which ones? For what?"_

_Marten threw the last of the bread down the hillside, where some stopped against the rocks and others rolled into the water. 'There's that nice house up in the Eastern Kingdom—you know it, don't you Terran?"_

"_That I do. Be it that labyrinthine one, up in the fief above the Queens? It still stands, doesn't it?"_

"_It does indeed. Quiet a lovely place, Herbert. That fief has been without a lord for centuries—since before the Wars. The house is very lovely."_

_Herbert, braiding the stalks of a bunch of sunweeds he had pulled up, nodded absently. "It has lots of roses, though, doesn't it? Dangerous thing, that."_

_Terran nodded in agreement. "True—grounds haven't been care-took for so long. Hostile brambles, they be."_

_Marten leaned over and messed up Terran's hair. "Me and brother here will go up to the Queen and King tonight, and try to work something out with them. It would be nice for the children, wouldn't it?"_

"_It would be." Herbert pulled a handful of sweets out of each pocket for each of them, as he always did. "A nice fay from the other side gave these to me—they taste different from the ones over here, but they're still sugar." He laid back in the tall grass as they divided them among each other. "Say, while you're up in the Kingdom, could you get a bushel of apples for me? I've been craving those sweet reddish ones for awhile now."_

_Terran said something that might have been consent, but his voice was already fading away, and Herbert couldn't be sure. He breathed in the smell of sea-breeze and sunweeds, and let it out in the guest bedroom in Gabriel's castle._

* * *

_Fiefdom: _

1) The estate or domain of a feudal lord.

2) Something over which one dominant person or group exercises control.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Wow. First off, I'd like to apologize to the readers (if anybody is reading this still) for being…three months behind schedule? Yeah. Rilly must apologize for that. I haven't been doing much writing. Someone must have whacked me upside the head with a writer's-block stick. Or something.

"Please, don't wake me, no, don't shake me  
Leave me where I am-- I'm only sleeping."

-"I'm Only Sleeping", The Beatles.

(In case it's any interest, me and a friend of mine are starting a book; it's being posted on my deviantArt account, the link to which may be found on my main page. It's one of the reasons I haven't been scribbing these chapters lately. You should check it out. Not that I've done much updates on that, either.)

* * *

_**After**_

Afterwards, Gabriel tried to remember those months, but it all came in fractured bits. For one, he could remember it snowing, but he couldn't remember if he felt cold. He remembered being given food and having his arm bandaged, but he couldn't, for the life of him, ever remember being hungry or being injured. He knew he must have spoken at least a little during that time, but couldn't remember what he said, or even the discussion. He _did_ remember the talk of a door, but was confused whenever he thought about that. It could be that he forgot that, too, but all he remembered of his time were endless mirrors, always mirrors. He remembered someone—it could have been his father, mother, or sisters, he didn't know—telling him to try and walk _through_ the mirror. Or, they told him to walk past a line they had drawn in the snow. When he walked through the spot, he remembered an odd feeling on the back of his neck, but nothing else to tell him he was walking through anything but air. There were arguments about that, his family staying up long into the night.

They could have been anyone. After a while, he didn't forget them…there was just no emotional attachments to their names and faces, and only very dim memories—even with Michelle. It was as if the scars on his back never existed; therefore, there was no fear of her.

He remembered being asked his name by…by someone, and having to think for a long while before answering.

Afterwards, he felt a déjà-vu. When he'd first met Elizabeth, he had done the same time. Sometimes, he woke up thinking _I've forgotten myself, I've forgotten myself again._ When he realized he was awake, he sighed with relief, knowing that it would never happen again. It could never happen; he swore to himself countless times, half-awake, he would never leave Elizabeth again.

That was afterwards, long after.

* * *

_**Present**_

"I've never gone to the market with you before, have I?" Elizabeth looked up from her book, a red mark on her face from resting it in her hand. At that moment, she looked strangely old to even Fraya, who was well past her second century. She reminded her of her grandmother, though why, she couldn't say. There certainly wasn't much resemblance; Elizabeth _was _human, after all.

"You're welcome to start if you like, milady." _It's the sitting. After she had to close down her shop, all she did was sit in her room in front of the window, sometimes stitching, sometimes just staring out at the birds…past the birds. Ah, stop your pointless thoughts, girl; just get the lady up and about. Get her mind off of things. Two days already, and still no sign of him… _"I'll warn you right away: the marketplace Ella and I go to might not be what you're used to."

"I'm up for an adventure, I think," she said gamely, cracking her back and setting her book aside on the table. "Give me a moment to change out of my nightclothes, will you? I was meaning to, but I just got caught up in my reading."

"I'll wait outside in the courtyard." Fraya took care not to let the door slam behind her and walked briskly down the hall and flights of stairs. Since she and Ella (and the late Mirei, whose name was actually Marie) had been hired, she had familiarized herself with the castle to an extent that Gabriel, had he asked, would have been more than a little impressed. She figured that she couldn't find her way around with a blindfold, as Gabriel could (him having wandered the castle for as long as he could walk), but she knew most of the floors well enough, with the exception of the topmost floors and the dungeons.

Ella, on the other hand, never seemed to have the need for directions or knowledge of her surroundings; after all, if she got lost, all she needed to do was backtrack with her magic. Teleportation had its advantages.

Mirei—Marie—could conjure extremely affective tracking spells, and seemed to have a compass inside her head. Fraya realized sadly that if she hadn't been killed, she could probably have already figured out where Gabriel was. Her and Ella's talents were handy on the most parts, but it was situations like these that made her feel completely useless. What good did having a vivid memory for places do, if she didn't even know where to look? Ella's skill could get them anywhere in the blink of an eye, but Gabriel could have been in Spain, for all they knew.

"On a mission, Mademoiselle?" Herbert grinned at her from a low wrought iron bench off to the side of the courtyard. She noticed that his grin wasn't quite so vacant (as she had first thought it was). It was simply a very _young_ smile on an aging face. In the mid-morning sunlight, his hair seemed all the more offensive.

Fraya pulled her long coat around herself and returned the smile. "Elizabeth and I are off to the market."

He craned his neck to look over her shoulder, and then swept his eyes around the courtyard. Rose sat contentedly on his lap, dozing. "Oh?"

She guessed what he was thinking, but couldn't quite believe it. Could it be possible for a man of his age—he had to be at least in his mid-forties—to have so simple a mind? "She's still inside. She'll be joining me soon enough." _Almost like a child. Except for his eyes…sometimes, they look older. Much older. How strange._ "Is there anything you would have us pick up for you?"

"Hmm? Oh…would they have apples? I have a liking for sweet apples. I can never seem to get them myself that often, though. And they're so expensive! Here, use my money." He dug through the many pockets in his coat before coming up with the money, and placed roughly two hundred francs in her hand. "There, that should be enough for a few."

Fraya wondered if he was pulling a joke on her. "A few what, _hundreds_?"

"No, a few _apples_," he corrected a look of confusion on his face. "You know, three or four. A _few_."

"I _know_ what 'a few' means. Why so much money? Do you have a fancy for apples dipped in gold or something of the sort?"

"Well, that's what the market I usually go to says the price is." Herbert blinked and tilted his head. "You know, I may have been rooked."

"Just _maybe_." Fraya was meaning to start a little interrogation of the oddly childish magician (who he _was_, for starters), but decided to put it off when Elizabeth stepped out into the courtyard. "We'll be off now—if you need anything, you'll have to call for Kal or Allie."

He inclined his head and smiled. It was such a openly happy and somewhat innocent smile that Fraya felt it necessary to return one. "Good day, then." When she held out his money, he accepted it as indifferently as dead leaves.

When they left on Elizabeth's horse (Fraya didn't have the same tricks of dissipation as Ella), Herbert was staring dreamily off into the distance; he didn't even notice when they rode past him.

_It's almost as if_, Fraya thought, _we're just ghosts to him._

* * *

The faery market (Elizabeth wasn't quite sure _where_ it was; only that it was in the forest) was quite different from the ones she was used to. For starters, there was the lack of humans. Instead of the usual farmers and housewives, there were dozens of different types of immortals, some with iridescent skin, and some with such rough skin that it could have been mistaken for tree bark. Some were so pale they seemed to glow under the cover of the trees, and others seemed not to be there at all; the light passed _through _them, and Elizabeth saw in shock that she could see right through it to the people standing behind. All of the faeries she had heard of—fays, gnomes, hobgoblins, elves, pixies, dwarves, bean-tighes, ellyllons—, as well as human-appearing immortals and a variety of demons all seemed to be milling around the market clearing, squabbling and bartering and gossiping and peddling. Fraya tied her mare far away from the cleaning with a charm around her neck, muttering to Elizabeth about spriggans. "The thieving little things will rob you if you give them less than half a chance."

The faery market seemed to be organized by colour rather than food. That alone was fairly confusing; there were separate tables, each with its respective load of strawberries, red scarves, meat, or tomatoes (there was also much more; at least a dozen more tables, in fact) all in a row.

"I need to barter for some pots," Fraya said, handing Elizabeth a large wicker basket and a drawstring purse. "There was a little mishap in the kitchen the other day involving…well, you don't need to know. While I do that, I need you to fetch two dozen eggs. I should be along shortly. Just remember, don't give anyone out your full name. You don't want to get into any trouble." She patted her on the shoulder and trotted off to a booth that was nearly covered in pots and pans, ranging from something you might use to fry eggs in to soup pots large enough to fit a person in.

Elizabeth blinked and tried to maneuver through the crowd without appearing too out of place. The section of the market reserved for neutral colours seemed to be all the way at the end of the clearing. At one point, she nearly tripped over a small faery riding a chicken. When she managed to locate the eggs, the bent-over woman at the booth spoke fractured French, substituting more than a few words that Elizabeth had to guess at. She supposed it was a faery language. In the end, she was sure she paid more than two dozen egg's worth, but it had taken her long enough just to get her point across to the woman. She handed over the money without complaint and put the parcel into her basket.

"You. Girl."

She jumped and spun around, almost tripping on a gnome this time. "Beg pardon?"

The woman looked at her evenly. She seemed to be somewhere in her mid-thirties. He dark golden hair was pulled back from her face and tied with a piece of rawhide; not a strand escaped. She made Elizabeth want to suddenly stand straight, even though she was not dressed formally. She was dressed, almost, as a peasant, in cheap cotton pants and a blouse. "You're the girl from Paris, aren't you? You and the tall glamoured fellow."

"I…I'm sorry, do I know you?" Elizabeth frowned slightly. It seemed almost as if she should know the woman, though she couldn't for the life of her remember meeting her. Then she noticed that her eyes were a lovely golden colour. They stared at each other, the stranger's cool, calculating eyes never blinking once. "…Jessica?" She said at last, flabbergasted.

She smiled wryly; there wasn't much joy in it. "I saw you in Paris. You and the tall boy. You were with the Kalendrakk."

Elizabeth took a hesitant step back. "Yes," she said carefully. _Didn't Kal say she was dead? No, he_ thought_ she was dead._ "I…"

"I don't bite. Which it more than I can say for _him_," she added darkly. "May I speak with you?" She motioned for Elizabeth to follow her. Still more than a little shocked (and confused) she did, until they were just beyond the market's boundaries.

Jessica crossed her arms and stared off into the forest. Despite the cold weather, she didn't wear a jacket. "He's alive, isn't he?"

For one confused moment, Elizabeth thought she was talking about Gabriel, and had to swallow hard. _No, don't think about him now…you were doing so well. Just forget for now. It's Kal she means._ "Don't come after him," she managed, getting her mind re-focused. "Please don't. He's really changed, and…just don't."

She laughed shortly. "I guess you've heard all of the horror stories about me. You've a softer side for the real monsters, I see."

Elizabeth was grateful that Jessica wasn't looking at her. It gave her time to gain composure. The last thing she wanted to do was to break down crying like a child. "Don't call my fiancé or Kal that. They're good people."

"Good, eh? Well, I can't speak for your sweetheart, but does a good person--" She cute herself off and took in a deep breath. "I didn't come to argue about that bastard. I was going to give a message to him, but seeing as he's your _friend_,you can carry it." She said "friend" in a way that made it seem like a terminal illness.

"What's the message?" she sighed, hoping that Fraya would come for her soon. Talking to Jessica made her uncomfortable. She had certainly killed less people than Kal had, but Kal was her friend—she could vouch for him.

"My brother died last month. There's been a small war between us and another clan for a while now, for the mountain territory, and an assassin got him. No, don't say you're sorry, you didn't know him in the first place." She exhaled and looked at her sideways. "Just tell that little freak that I have enough on my hands, with ruling my city andmaintaining our troops. If he comes so much as a mile within our mountains, he or the little blonde will be shown no mercy. That includes his former territory as well—it's a warfront."

"I'll tell him."

She nodded shortly. "You'd best. There'll be no more leniency for Allison—she no longer plays a role in the prophecy. The penalty would be the same for the both of them. And before I forget…" She took the small leather pouch she wore around her neck off and dropped it into Elizabeth's hand. "It's from his brother." She turned to leave, and paused. "You look like a decent girl. Do yourself a favor and leave _all_ of them; find a normal life. Humans and demons were never meant to mix." Jessica bowed shortly and stalked off into the woods. A moment later, Elizabeth saw her fly above the trees.

"Bit rich of her," she muttered to herself, dropping the pouch around her own neck. _She was engaged to a human once, wasn't she?_

Fraya found her not long after. "Hurry on, now," she said over her shoulder, nearly walking into a wraith-like creature. "If we're going to make it home in time to make lunch we'll have to be quick." It seemed impossible to Elizabeth to get anywhere in a hurry in the crowded marketplace, jostling to get in line behind uncountable different kinds of human-like creatures. After many bruised sides, sore toes, and haggling, they managed to make their way back out of the clearing with their goods.

"Is it always like this?"

Fraya nodded. "Unfortunately, milady. I heard it used to be much more civilized and much less crowded—but that was back when my grand-mother was young. Nowadays, we just take whatever abandoned spaces we find fit as much as we can into them. The humans are always pushing us into smaller and smaller boundaries." She laughed off Elizabeth's startled look and put their groceries into the mare's saddle-bags. "Don't worry. It'll never be so that we'll get driven out. We immortals and faeries have been around for _millennia_. Lack of market-space doesn't mean the end of our time!"

* * *

Lunch was delivered to him as it had been before, at a quarter past twelve. One of the faery-girls would bring his food and drink to him and then leave with a polite nod. Of all of the times he'd been a captive in his life, it was certainly one of the more glamorous prisons, if not the most entertaining.

The magician kept him from boredom. He and his kind were things of legends; for Jason to try and understand the strange, offensively dressed man occupied all of his spare time. Herbert stopped by usually twice during the day, once before his breakfast was brought in (Jason had a sneaking suspicion that his "hosts" sent him to see if he was still there; not that her could escape), and then after his lunch was delivered to filch the sugar. Whenever he came, Jason would try to get more information out of him, but the furthest he had gotten so far was his birthplace.

"It's an island a ways south from the mainland," he replied vaguely in between his mouthfuls of sugar. "We don't have much contact with the mainland, or many of the other islands, for that matter. A lot of the merchants dock their ships on the way to the mainland, though. That's where we get most of our news."

"What is the name of the island?"

Herbert grinned, grains of sugar stuck to his lips and caught in his week's worth of beard. "I'm just an ordinary magician, Monsieur. I was born in Persia."

"What—then why did you just say--?"

He flapped a hand, cutting him off. "It's really nothing you should know. There _are _certain rules…" He trailed off and blinked a few times, as if clearing his head. "Oh, how nice! You're about to have a visitor. I think that I'll go for a stroll." He set the little porcelain sugar bowl (now empty) down on the lunch tray and brushed a few grains off of his shirt.

"Do me a favor?"

"Hm?"

Jason pulled a pen out of a pocket inside his robe. "Find some ink and parchment and draw me a map of the place?"

Herbert accepted the pen, holding it in one open palm. He passed his free hand over the other, and the pen disappeared. Holding both empty hands up dramatically, he picked up his hat from its spot on the floor. The pen was stuck into the brim like a feather. "Amusing, no? Took me a while to learn that one. I can't say I'll draw a very good map, but I'll have a go at it. Of course, I'll have to run it past the others, first."

"Others? What others?"

Herbert waved and strolled out of the room without listening. Not quite a minute later, the door opened again and was slammed unnecessarily violently by his latest visitor.

"Good afternoon, milady. My, your hair looks exceptionally yellow today. Wonderfully so." He hadn't intended on being exceptionally sarcastic. He'd been doing it for so long that it just leaked out of his mouth whenever he opened it. In fact, he'd been meaning on complimenting Elizabeth, in (rather vain) hopes of fending her off a bit. She was a lovely girl—as far as humans went—but she had quite the temper when it came to him (though he had himself to blame for that).

She sat down in the chair Herbert had vacated, and took a deep breath as if preparing to dive. "I want to see Gabriel," she said hurriedly. "No, wait--" She held up a hand that still bore calluses from years of farming and newer scars from the roses.

_Too many damned roses,_ he thought disgustedly. _Pretty, yes, but God! There is such a thing as one too many!_ He kept his face politely neutral and leaned back in his chair. "Go on, I won't interrupt. Except—you have a few twigs in your hair. And a leaf. And possibly a pixie."

She picked them out and ran her hands through the snarls in her hair, talking all the while. "Allie and Kal knew that you scryed them before. That's what it's called, right? Scrying?"

He nodded after a second's pause. _ How could they have known that? Not that stealth has ever been one of my strong points. Still! It's _humiliating_! How many years of experience do I have over them? Focus, Jason, focus._

"…people, right? If you use the right spell, you can find them?" She looked expectantly at him, eyes wide and hands not quite steady.

He gathered his thoughts. _God, she looks pathetic…when was the last time she slept?_ "Well…no, not exactly. You can see the person you're scrying, and a certain amount of their surroundings; it's not a map. You need the adequate control in order to use a scrying glass—a glass orb, or crystal, it doesn't really matter—to locate the thing you're looking for, but you can't know precisely where they _are_."

"Stop your blabbering, then, and find him!" Elizabeth tossed a round crystal perhaps the size of a closed fist at him. If not for his reflexes, it would have hit him squarely in the forehead.

"You could at least ask_ nicely_," he muttered, turning the orb over in his hands. It was a pretty thing, solid crystal, not the blown-glass he was accustomed to. _Where did that _come _from, though? I saw her hands when she came in…they were_ empty_. She has no pockets._

_Magic, _his mind answered drolly.

He smiled to himself and called the proper spells to the front of his mind, looking up only when Elizabeth's shadow fell over him. "Mademoiselle? Could you not _hover_?"

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest and favored him with an icy look.

"Or, whatever makes you comfortable," he said easily, and passed his hand over the orb.

* * *

_Jason chucks the orb at the wall, where it shatters. "Man, this thing has crappy reception! We should have gotten digital!"_


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: So. Two blondes walk into a bar AND YOU LOSE.

Any players of the Game know what I mean.

"'All articles that are excluded shall be deemed included'."

-Winslow Leech, Phantom of the Paradise

Allie paced back and forth in their guest room, her braid snapping dramatically over her shoulder with each turn. Had Jason been watching at the time, he would have been impressed. It was a very well executed anxiety-filled pace. Every once in a while, she would rake a hand through her hair. A good deal of it had come undone from the braid, and fluttered around her face. The small pouch Elizabeth had passed on to her lay on the bed, forgotten for the moment. She had yelled for Kal to come home some three hours ago, as soon as she had heard the news about the small war Jessica was waging for his former home. He'd left before sun-up that morning, leaving a note in his scratchy, barely legible runes—in his language, on top of that. The note mentioned something about a type of plant that was useful in tracking spells.

"He should have been back by now," she mumbled to Rose. There wasn't anything else to direct her anxious mutterings and mumblings to, other than the cat. Talking to Death had taken away any of the strangeness of addressing animals for her…but it also made her used to getting an answer in return. The cat had yawned a few times, but other than that was quiet.

"Well? What do you think? I know it's a long ways off—over a _month_ for a traveler—but Kal can cover that distance in at _least_ five hours, and he's been gone all day. He _should_ be back!"

"_Someone's_ a little impatient."

Allie spun around in time to catch him crawling through the window. "I was _worried_ about…oh no, what happened to your _hair?"_ She rushed across the room to get a better look, thinking her eyes had played a trick on her. They hadn't: his formerly waist-length hair now ended at his shoulders. Not very neatly, either.

He stared blankly at her for a moment, jaw slightly agape. "I have third- and second-degree burns over eighty percent of my back," he exclaimed, turning around, "and _that's _the first thing you notice? My_ hair_?"

Allie fought back a wave of nausea. She had become more accustomed to gore…but only slightly. "What--"

"My wings and hair caught on fire--some _drose-t'ri_ catapulted flaming balls of pitch at me."

"But didn't you _hear_--"

"Yes, I _heard_ you. Just as I was trying to dodge their flaming arsenal, as a matter of fact. I managed to fall into a lake, and that at least put out the fire and washed some of the mess off."

She hissed through her teeth. "Oh, _ow. _ Come on, sit down. I'll go get the medical supplies." Gabriel and Elizabeth had presented them with a generous supply on their arrival, anticipating something like this. She'd stored it in their closet, hoping they wouldn't have to use it. "You look sort of funny with short hair."

Kal threw his hands up in the air and collapsed onto a footstool. "Ignore the hair for a minute, will you? Have you_ ever_ gotten a second-degree burn? It's not comfortable, and I can't heal myself." Since the near-death incident with that poisoned arrow to the heart, his healing abilities had diminished significantly. She suspected he'd used nearly all of them in order to heal it.

"I'm getting it, I'm getting it. Look at Jessica's little gift in the meantime." Without bothering to look around, she levitated it off of the bed and into his hand.

"_Jessica?"_

"Elizabeth got it from Jessica, who got it from…I don't know. I'll go get some water from the kitchens—try not to move, alright?"

"Oh, I'm just turning cartwheels," he snorted, working the drawstring open.

When she came back with a basin of water and a rag, he had a pendant was draped across his fingers. A gem roughly two inches long was attached to the end of the silver chain. It looked like a quartz point, but instead of smoky white, it was black. It seemed opaque at first, but when light hit it, the hundreds of tiny faults inside seemed to gleam purple, then dark blue, then red.

She set the water down next to him and carried a chair and the box containing the medical supplies over. "Well, that's pretty. Was that what was in the pouch?" Now that she was closer, she could see what looked like the "K" rune turned upside down carved onto one of the facets.

He held up a scrap of folded parchment between his first and middle finger. "It's from brother-dearest."

"Really? Drel?" She wrung out the cloth and began to clean off the mixture of blood, charred skin, and bits of sticky pitch. Lovely.

"Hs! _Xiekk kara durinn qu' ra-neh_, woman! Why're you using boiling water?" he hissed, jerking away.

"It's not that warm," she chided, wringing out the cloth. She'd taken the time to cast a tiny ward against her nausea, one of the useful tricks she'd learned from her teachers. It seemed to be working, so far at least. "And please, don't even use those words in a sentence when you're talking to me. Even if it's meant as a cuss. _Really_, Kal."

"It's not warm, it's scalding! Why don't you just grind some salt into my back and then douse it with brandy?" He leaned over and held his hand over the water. A moment later the steam stopped rising from it. "You_ never_ put hot water on burns."

"Sorry." Allie soaked the rag in the now-cold water and went back to cleaning the burns. His back, a part of his shoulders, a small section of his sides, and part of his upper biceps were covered in burns similar to those he used to get when he made physical contact with people. "You must've gone up like a flare, poor thing. How are you even _conscious_?"

"I've have a lot more self-control than you, Princess."

"It _smells_."

"What, you don't like roast?" he quipped, turning the pendant over in his hand. "On a relevant subject, have there been any news?" He didn't have to specify.

She sighed heavily. "Nothing. I tried to find him earlier on, and I got nothing. I sent Death out, but I haven't heard anything from _him_, either."

Kal fell silently for a while, fiddling with the pendant.

_-What did he say?- _ Allie tried not to use their link to talk to him on a regular basis: in public, it was extremely awkward for anyone else with them, because it seemed as if they were giving each other the cold shoulder by not speaking. It was something of a habit when they were alone, though.

Kal flinched slightly. _**–did you just take off some of my skin?-**_

_-Heh…sorry about that.-_

He unfolded the scrap of paper in his spare hand. _**–'Kalendrakk'-**_

_-Ooh, bad start.-_

_**-'Our parents had this made for you for your birthday. They died shortly after it was made. A good life is more than you deserve, but I wish you one regardless. Take care of Allison; Sa na'te raesa kel teah darke keles, xela sa na'te rinn.-**_

_-That sounds familiar, that bit at the end.-_Allie hummed to herself, setting aside the now-filthy water and rag, and switched back to speaking aloud unconsciously. "Your life always before, as long as you have life."

Kal laughed to himself, wincing as the motion caused more pain. _**–it's "as long as you live"—you're still translating literally, aren't you? It's from the end of the binding spell I used that summer—I still don't know what possessed me to do **_**that. **_**"My life always before, as long as I have life". –**_

Allie rolled her eyes heavenward and brushed his hair off of the nape of his neck, revealing thick scars that ran all the way up to the base of his neck. She ran her hand lightly over them. _–All of these scars…they can't be healthy.-_

_**-well, neither are the open wounds on my back-**_

She cracked her knuckles (another habit she'd picked up from him) and called up the healing spell. "This is going to itch a bit," she announced, and swallowing hard, placed her hands palm down on the worst of the burns. Under her palms, the muscle and skin tissue began to re-knit itself. After it finished, she moved on to the rest of the burns, finishing the healing process that would have taken weeks in a matter of minutes. She stopped quite often to rinse her hands off.

"This is the best I can do," she sighed a few moments later, running a hand over the newest addition of heavy scar tissue. "It's gotten much too tough…a professional healer would be better."

He waved a hand absently, lapsing back into regular speech himself. "When's last you stopped to check in on Elizabeth?"

"Just a few hours ago. Why do you ask?"

"I don't trust the girl with herself. She doesn't seem exactly…mentally sound," he finished. "A little on the weak side, you know."

"No, I don't. Liz is the farthest thing from insane." She stood and crossed to the side of the room to Kal's closet, and began rifling through it for a shirt. "She's held up incredibly well through all of these…happenings, better than some people could have. I--"

"I didn't mean her sanity," he interrupted. "You saw how she was, back in Paris."

Allie shot him a look over her shoulder. "You can hardly blame her for that," she said, settling on a faded black cotton shirt. It was better suited for the summer than the late autumn, like the rest of his wardrobe. He still complained about the temperature, even though he spent more time in France's climate than in the sub-zero mountain climate. "She thought he was dead."

He rolled a hand in the air. "And now something similar is happening. Say…say she starts thinking that maybe he's not coming back. How many times, exactly, has Sticks been in these life-threatening situations? Maybe she starts thinking that this time, he won't make it. Then what?" Kal met her eyes evenly with his own mismatched pair. Even without most of his emotions suppressed, they were still as cool and calculating as before. "Humans can only deal with losing people close to them so many times."

Allie blinked. "You're talking about suicide," she said flatly, sitting down. A frown line appeared between her eyebrows, as it usually did when she was stressed. "Kal, that's not possible. She's…she's _Liz_," she finished. "She's been through as much as I have—am I suicidal?"

He raised an eyebrow and tugged the shirt out of her hands. "No," he admitted, slipping it over his head. "But you forget that you are also mentally connected to _me_, who just so happens to be extremely unwilling to die."

"You also just so happen to have had most of your emotions suppressed for nearly all your life. People don't just up and decide to kill themselves. Kal…"

"What?"

"Your shirt's on backwards."

He grumbled and twisted it around. "Damn useless thing…don't see any point in wearing it. Anyway, keep an eye on her, is all I'm saying."

Allie crossed her arms over her chest and mimicked his annoyed expression. "She doesn't _need _watching. Liz is responsible. You, on the other hand--"

He cut her off, apparently listening to something. "Then why is she….scrying? She can't scry. That'd mean…"

* * *

"Well?" she snapped. Her knuckles were white and her hands were beginning to grow sore, but she couldn't seem to stop wringing them. "Anything? It's been--"

"Fifteen minutes, yes," Jason snapped back. "Haven't you heard of a little virtue by the name of patience, Mademoiselle? Or perhaps _silence?_"

Elizabeth forced her hands to let go of themselves and began tapping on the arms of her chair. "It's not supposed to take this long is it?"

Jason offered her a scathing look from under the curtain of silver hair that had fallen over his face, before re-directing his attention to the glass orb. Images swirled under the surface so quickly that they became a blur of colour and light. Every so often, one of the images would freeze long enough for Elizabeth to see a scene, distorted by the curve of the orb, before it flashed by. A woman walking down a road with a basket; a group of children running through the streets; a beggar asleep in a gutter…hundreds of images, hundreds of different people. At one point, the entire glass filled up with a blindingly bright light of shifting colours before resuming to its scrambled images.

Elizabeth blinked the dancing spots in front of her eyes away while trying to keep track of the images inside the orb. Gabriel could flash by at any time—what if they didn't notice? "What was that?"

Jason shrugged disinterestedly. "Magickal interference. It happens occasionally."

She waited for a further explanation and, after it became apparent he'd lost interest, slumped back down in her chair, trying to keep track of all the scenes flashing by. They were starting to give her a terrible headache. "I thought that you could just locate the person by giving a command to the orb," she sighed unhappily. "It worked like that when you tracked down Allie."

He muttered something indistinct and most likely vulgar. "That's because they didn't have any little charms that block scrying, did they? I didn't have to sort through every gods-be-damned slightly magickal being in..." He trailed off as the images in the orb gradually came to a stop, showing them a black marble gravestone. "…in France," he finished, clearing his throat. He tapped the orb impatiently and said a word in a foreign language under his breath. It lingered on the gravestone for another second before returning to the dizzying parade of images. The light from the orb played off of his gaunt face, lighting up the tiny network of fine lines at the edges of his eyes and the frown lines at the corners of his mouth.

Elizabeth wondered distantly how old an immortal had to be for those signs of age to start appearing. His skeletal frame, possibly worse than even Gabriel, seemed impossibly frail under his voluminous robe, and his fine silver hair hung limply over his face. This Jason seemed to be the farthest thing from the one she'd first encountered the year before. She realized that now, if given the chance, she would be unable to kill him as she had wanted to. "The gravestone was hers, wasn't it?" She hadn't meant to say it aloud and almost regretted it when one of his eyes twitched minutely.

"Yes," he replied simply, not diverting his attention.

"You miss her, don't you?"

Jason frowned slightly. "I thought I told you to shut that mouth of yours, _Liz_."

She held up her hands in a gesture of neutrality. "I was just--"

"Asking. Of course." Jason flicked his eyes up briefly. "Perhaps you're curious…you wish to prepare yourself, maybe? For when your precious little freak dies because of you. Would you like to know how it _feels_, Liz? When they die, knowing full well that it's your fault they're in agony, and still they don't blame you? Are you curious to know how it feels to bury your fiancé, to cover them under a blanket of dirt and know that they're worth nothing anymore, except as fodder for the worms and maggots, because of you?" His voice never once rose in volume or changed from its coolly courteous tone.

Elizabeth blinked and stumbled over some clumsy, half-started sentences before Jason shrugged them off.

"Never mind. You can't help being a stupid. You're still a little girl, after all," he added, smiling sarcastically. "Just be quiet. I already have a headache, you know."

She lapsed into another bout of silence, sitting on her hands as not to wring them together. It got quite painful after a while, all that anxious wringing…

Five minutes dragged by. In the space of that time, an idea had begun to form in her mind. "Could I try for a bit?" she asked.

"You?" His concentration broke and he looked up with an expression short of amusement on his face. "Well, yes, you could try, and in the process alert every experienced magick-user in the area—which, of course, would include your dear's parents."

She held out her hand, palm up. "Just let me try. I think I know how to find him."

Jason laughed shortly. "You've only just figured out that you're capable of magick. How do you expect to _control_ it? They'll be able to sense you, and either decide to move, or kill the brat you've taken a liking to. Not," he added lazily, "that it would be of much concern to me. You, on the other hand, should rethink that."

"We could probably help a bit."

Elizabeth started and twisted around in her chair. Allie's head was poking comically through the gap in the door. She slipped in, followed by Kal (who automatically narrowed his eyes at Jason).

"Oh, look," Jason sneered, tossing his hair back and glaring back at Kal. "Your little friends have come to your aid. What a nice surprise--I wasn't aware that I was in a children's story until this moment. Please, sit down; I'd _love_ two more infants to ruin my concentration."

Allie twitched her hand and summoned the orb over to her. "It can't hurt to let her try. Here, Liz." Allie walked over and gestured for Kal to stay where he was, keeping a wary eye on him. "No killing, you."

"Not even a little?" He looked pointedly at Jason.

"No." She dragged a stool over next to Elizabeth's chair and placed the orb in her hands. "You remember that little book I gave you the other day on scrying?"

Jason through his hands up in the air. "A book! Lovely!" He stalked off to the far side of the room, muttering in disgust. "_Children_."

"Thanks for trying!" Allie called after him.

Elizabeth turned the orb over in her hands. Inside, it was once more blank. It could have been an odd bauble or a paperweight for all it looked at the moment. "I think I know how to find him." She pretended not to notice Allie's sympathetic look, or the uncertainty beneath it.

"I'll just be here to make sure that nothing happens that isn't supposed to." Allie rolled up her sleeves and cracked her knuckles. "A few charms and the like. Nobody will detect her," she called over to Jason, who flapped a bony hand irritably in her general direction.

"Kal cut his hair?" she asked, momentarily distracted. "When did that happen?"

"Oh. He just caught on fire—try to concentrate on the scrying, alright?"

Kal crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. "I feel so loved."

Elizabeth smiled and raised the orb up to eye level, trying to focus the magic she only recently discovered.

_Find Gabriel for me._

The orb filled with what looked like smoke, but otherwise, nothing happened.

_Find Gabriel. I need Gabriel to be found._

As it had for Jason, images of people appeared for a few seconds, distorted by the curve of the glass, then disappeared. Elizabeth raked her mind for ideas. There had to be something that Jason hadn't done. She had the idea a moment ago that she could find him.

What if she didn't use a magickal command?

_Gabriel. I need you. _

It seemed that a burred image appeared for a second in the glass.

_If you can hear me, I need to find you. Gabriel, help me find you._

An image appeared for a second, almost too quick to catch what it was. Elizabeth thought it might have been a face.

_Please?_

A split-second image of Gabriel standing on his balcony, which dissolved into the interior of his room.

A roll of parchment on a writing desk appeared inside the glass. A gloved hand moved into view, holding a pen. _You must not try to find me,_ it scrawled in a familiar spiky cursive. _I do not want to put you in danger; you have to trust me. Wait. Midday of January 21__st__. Stay safe, for both our sakes. Je t'aime, ange._

The hand paused, then scrawled another sentence hastily at the bottom of the note.

_Don't try to climb the castle wall._

* * *

Goody, another pile of dross. Ain't you excited?


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: Such excitement, eh?

(mind vomit)

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. You should read it.

"Words are flying out like  
endless rain into a paper cup  
They slither while they pass  
They slip away across the universe  
Pools of sorrow waves of joy  
are drifting thorough my open mind  
Possessing and caressing me."

"Across the Universe", The Beatles.

* * *

**The next day**

Marten tossed an apple over to Herbert as he sat up. "You owe us, friend."

"Aye," Tarren echoed, holding up bronzed arms criss-crossed with angry-looking red scratches. "Bramble-vines bit us. Not very happy, no, they weren't."

Marten, bearing quite a few scratches of his own, shook his head. "They were a bit worse than I thought—very unhappy about us strolling about in their flowerbeds, eh Tarren?"

Tarren scowled and made snatching motions with his hands.

Herbert pulled a handful of sweets out of his pocket and divided them amongst the two. "What about the house? Did you go inside?"

Tarren shrugged half-heartedly. "Goodish."

"It's…in quite an interesting state," Marten elaborated, crunching the sweets between his slightly pointed teeth. "An amazing work of magick…there must be _layers_ upon layers of spells…"

Herbert made a rolling motion with his hand, indicating for him to continue. Above, the gulls wheeled and screeched, annoyed that there was no bread for them.

He swallowed, his eyes seeming to glow in excitement. "There thousand of corridors, Herbert, less I be mistaken. The entire place is a labyrinth—yes, we knew that—but the labyrinth itself _moves!_ Barriers were up at some point—aye, Tarren?"

Tarren nodded in agreement. "Protective. Binding. Kept magick to itself, to different sections."

"Those are broken down now, all melted away with the years," Marten continued. "There be magick everywhere, spells mixing with spells. Just…all over! The entire castle should have been broken down, with all of the centuries past, but the same magicks somehow _preserve_ it, and…mirrors." He fell silent for a moment, fiddling with a piece of candy. "Where be it, now? It's not in the castle…"

"Outside," Tarren managed to say around a mouthful of sweets. "Fountain. It's under the water."

"And it's quite a big fountain…close to the size of an ordinary parlor-room. It's on the bottom—the door. The water is fairly shallow; it be about the height of my knee, a hand's-breadth above that at most."

Herbert sat back to digest the information. The state of the gardens alone could put a person's life in jeopardy, a magick-user or no. Roses, extremely volatile flowers to begin with, could make the gaudy scratches on Marten and Tarren seem like a lover's kiss.

After that, there was the castle itself to contend with. All of those spells, just floating around, could do considerable damage to a person's mind, if not their entire being. He'd known of many sorcerers past that had gone quite mad, some to the point of suicide, from simply living in a dwelling with a few too many loose spells. Magick could get inside one's head, given enough time. Being exposed to too much of the wrong spells and charms and other little magicks took a toll, especially if one wasn't used to being exposed to it. Non-magick users in particular. And in a world that had widely forgotten magick, such as the childrens'…

"I suppose I'll have to ask them first," Herbert said at last, twirling a lock of his violently purple hair around his index finger. "Even if they do agree…I'm not sure when that Gabriel fellow will be coming back. If he comes back. I've only gotten bits and pieces of their conversations, mind…the rest of the time I've been exploring their house."

"Should be soon," Tarren pointed out. "Said it's not very nice for them over there. Safer here, even though it be against the rules. They can get through?"

"They should be able to. You helped to create that room, didn't you?" Marten asked, looking pointedly at Herbert. "The little ones could get through by those, no?"

He shrugged uncertainly. "Possibly. It wasn't made for that purpose, mind—just a fancy of sorts. The mirrors _are _of a special kind, if I remember right."

"Well, then, all you need to do is get them to the fountain!" Marten stretched out on the grass, finishing the last of his share of the candy. He thought over what he had said, and craned his neck upwards. "You_ do_ ken how to do that little bit of switching, aye?"

* * *

Fraya dug her hands into the small of her back and stood carefully, wincing when her spine gave a series of not-so-small pops and cracks. Scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees instead of going to find a mop (which had mysteriously disappeared some weeks previous) may have not been the wisest thing to do, her back now told her.

Still, she was determined to keep herself busy about the castle. Everyone else, it seemed, was either moping too much, or reading too much, or sleeping too much.

Or, in Elansey's case, a bit too much frolicking through the daisies.

Fraya liked to keep in mind that she and her sister were, in fact, hired to cook and clean and whatnot, not to laze around the castle. It was their job, even though she couldn't recall either Gabriel or Elizabeth doing anything to remind them of it; she suspected that they would do their own washing and cooking without a qualm.

Rose slinked into the kitchens, crying for either food or attention (or both). Fraya took a moment to admire her own handiwork on Rose's artificial leg before filling a shallow bowl of water on the floor. "That's all, I'm afraid. The chicken for lunch is currently in the oven, and until then, you'll have to content yourself with mice and sparrows, my dear."

The cat eyed her as she lapped up her water (with a slightly demonic gleam all cats seemed to have). She padded off to the far end of the kitchen not a moment later, sniffing around in the corners. Her brass leg made dull clinking sounds on the stone floors that Fraya had spent the past hour cleaning.

"You won't be finding any mice in _this _kitchen, cat. Be a dear and go…chase birds or something outside. You'll mess up the floors, walking all over them like that. Go on, shoo." She made overly dramatic hand gestures at Rose, taking note of the time while she did so. It was only eleven; the day had seemed much later than that. Still, it gave her an odd hour-or-so to gather up everyone's clothes and bed sheets for washing before lunch was put out.

Rose sat nonchalantly in the corner, her tail curled neatly around her forepaws. _Why are you ordering _me? Her eyes seemed to say. _I'm the real mistress here, faery._

"Well, that may be, you feline, but I will not leave you and the food unattended," she huffed, crossing the room and tucking Rose under her arm. Most cats, she reflected, would have yowled and squirmed and tried to maul every inch or her flesh. Rose simply allowed herself to be picked up. Once she was in Fraya's arms, she scrambled up to perch on her shoulder. Within seconds, she was happily kneading her paws into Fraya's formerly neat leaf-green hair.

"I'll blame that on your master," she muttered under her breath. "I'll even go so far to tell him so when he returns, young lady!"

Rose purred in response, now working her needle-claws into the fabric of Fraya's sensible dress.

She patiently un-hooked the claws and started up the stairs out of the kitchens. "If you plan on being a passenger, Rose, try to keep your claws out of my flesh. It simply isn't polite." The last word came out as a wheeze. Fraya was in relatively good shape, and was still out of breath after climbing all of the stairs. There was the two dozen or so leading up form the kitchens to the main floor and to the main staircase (which totaled in thirty-two steps). Elizabeth's room was on the second level in the East wing, meaning another flight of stairs (a dozen). Halfway up the third staircase, Rose lost interest in their trek and jumped off, sauntering away with her tail in the air.

Elizabeth wasn't in her room, though a book was lay half-open on a couch. The light was poor, as the curtains weren't drawn back and none of the sconces were lit, but Fraya's eyes adapted to the dark better than a humans. It wasn't much of a trouble making her way across the room, even if her eyes were poor; Elizabeth had never been one to leave her clothes and belongings strewn about the room. Everything was in relative order (except perhaps for the unsteady-looking tower of books on the small table next to the couch); she actually had to un-make the bed.

Kalendrakk and Allison's room, on the other hand, was barely recognizable. Battered books (seeming to have endured a few decades of being stepped on, tossed about, left out in the rain, and used to fix uneven table legs), even more battered suitcases, a conglomeration of weather-worn and torn to shop-new clothes, and a mess of bird feathers were strewn from hell to breakfast. To complete the mess, a dozen candles were lit and floating around the room, some wrong-side up, all dripping a rainbow of wax onto the carpet and odd-ends. The occupants themselves were sitting in a heap on the floor, covered in what appeared to be ashes and looking rather shocked.

Kalendrakk was the first to react. He snagged a one of the battered books that happened to be floating around before a candle set it aflame, flipped open to a page, and scratched out a line with the charcoaled stump of a pen. "Brilliant idea, Princess, combining those two spells."

Fraya lingered hesitantly by the door. "Shall I come back later, then…?" Being in the same vicinity as Kalendrakk had a tendency of making her apprehensive. Pet of Allison or no, he had a bad habit of killing, and it was not limited to humans alone.

Allison shook her head, still seeming in a bit of a daze. "No, no," she managed, scrubbing her face clean with the hem of her skirt. Or, rather, attempting; it only smudged in odd streaks and colored her normally fair eyebrows a dirty grey. "Kal, would you take care of those candles before you get set on fire again?" she sighed offhandedly as she stripped the bed of its sheets and blankets and carried them over the Fraya. Just short of her intended destination, her foot came down on a patch of slippery wax and she fell backwards. Her fall was cushioned, however, by several dresses and a very agitated raven.

"XIEKK!" she yelled, scrambling up. "Sorry, Death! Oh dear, I didn't hurt you, did I? KAL! You're supposed to _catch_ me when I do that! What—KAL!" She struggled to her feet and thrust the pile of laundry into Fraya's arms, scurrying across the room to where the infamous Kalendrakk was being chased by a swarm of floating candles.

Fraya winced and shut the door on a particularly vicious, loud "_Xiekk-KARA_!"

"Try not to burn down the castle, please!" she called through the safely closed door and hurried away when a series of loud slams rattled the frame. It sounded as if a certain mahogany coffee table had been kicked out of the way of a certain drakk being chased by certain magicked candles and a certain harried lady. With certain loud curses.

Her line of vision was now obscured by the pile of laundry in her arms. Silly of her, not to think to bring along a basket to—

"What are they doing?" A voice behind her whispered. She jumped a fairly impressive few feet into the air and turned around, giving herself a good case of whiplash. Herbert jumped backwards, eyes bobbing on their stalks.

"I didn't mean to startle you," he apologized, eyes retreating back into their sockets. "I heard a series of loud explosions and thuds, you see, and I was afraid."

Fraya gathered up the blankets from where she had dropped them, smiling. "I'm sure they'll sort out…well, whatever it was that they happened to be doing, M. Herbert."

He grinned foolishly, the corners of his eyes folding up into a series of fine lines. "I'm sure." He eyed the precarious pile of linens in her arms, and his smile brightened. "Here--" He shook the patched sleeves of his shirt back from his arms, held them up, and pressed his hands together in what seemed to be a prayer. "I think I can help a little with that. Why don't you make a wish? No—not out loud."

She kept her confused frown to herself. _A laundry basket would be a nice, practical wish. It wouldn't do any good to wish for young Gabriel's safe return, now, would it? It would only confuse the simple man. A laundry basket it is._ "Done."

Herbert rubbed his square, callused hands together, still grinning in his childish (but not entirely unpleasant) way. "Now, let's see if I could catch that wish of yours!" He paused for dramatic effect, and then flung his arms outward. A wicker basket seemed to pop into existence in between the space his hands left. As if to complete the act, a few doves fluttered out of the basket and into the sunlight filtering through one of the windows (though their happiness about getting out of the basket was shirt-lived, as they soon faced an untimely demise at the paws of Rose).

Fraya gratefully dropped the laundry into the basket, applauding politely once her hands were freed. "That's wonderful, M. Herbert!" She couldn't quite help talking down slightly to the purple-haired man. His actions (and the fact that he was human, so most likely quite younger than she) didn't move towards changing her mind that he was somewhat of a simpleton. A nice simpleton, with maybe some genuine magick abilities (she doubted that he could be an ordinary magician) but perhaps missing some furniture in the attic.

His grin widened. "Just glad to help!" he said cheerfully, brushing his violently colored hair back from his face. In doing such, a welt in the shape of a daisy was revealed.

Balancing the basket on her hip--it really was so much more convenient than having to try and look over a pile—she made a gesture towards his head with a hand. "You should put a cool cloth on that if you don't want it to swell up."

"Will do. You like it? I was rather upset about having that book flung at me, but once I changed the shape of it, it made me feel ever so much better. I quite like daisies—don't you?"

She agreed that yes, daises were indeed quite nice, and was nearing a corner when her brain processed the rest of his sentence. When she looked over her shoulder, he was still in the same place, appearing to be hypnotized by the motion of the tiny flecks of dust in the strip of sunlight. "Who flung a book at you?"

"Let's see, now…" Herbert twisted his mouth to one side and tapped his chin with a forefinger. It was, in fact, a very good pondering expression. "Elizabeth, was it? The lady with all of that curly yellowish hair. Seemed a little out of sorts, poor dear."

"She threw a _book?"_

Elizabeth did indeed seem out of sorts (as was implied by the book-throwing, as she normally treated each and every book she touched as the Pope would treat a Bible autographed by Jebus himself), and when Fraya walked in Gabriel's room, she gave no notice as to her presence. She didn't _not _notice her; she could see the faery perfectly, even though from her point of view it would have seemed that Fraya was walking on the ceiling. Lying on the bed with her head hanging over the edge and a piece of parchment crumpled up in one hand, she simply went on staring vacantly as if Fraya weren't visible.

"Elizabeth?"

She sighed heavily, still staring off into space. "What?" she replied in a very un-Elizabeth-like manner.

A series of possible answers went through her head, ending with 'You really must be feeling worse than a mule's South end to throw a book at someone' and instead settled with "Is there anything I can get you, milady?"

"Maybe an answer as to why the man I fell in love with just _has to have_ such a sense of damn nobility," she suggested tersely, struggling into a sitting position. "None of the other ones do. They don't seem to have a problem for, just _once_ in their cursed lives, _not_ trying to protect their women."

Fraya gave an inward sight that rivaled Elizabeth's. She could sense that this would end up being a long and cross discussion, inevitably ending in tears. It _would_ be the day that she didn't have a single handkerchief on her, too.

"Well--" she began, setting down her basket and dragging a chair over to the bedside. Elizabeth continued on, cutting her off before she could get the rest of the sentence out. Not that she had been planning on it being a wonderful sentence that was both calming and cheering at the same time. She had never been good at dealing with overly-emotional business—too logical, she supposed. Her grandmother had been much better than that; even _Ella_ was much better.

"It's not just that!" The way she was twisting the bit of parchment over and over in her hands, soon nothing would be left but shreds and ink-smears. "He _knew_ what was happening, and he didn't even tell me! How in God's name he knew, I don't know…but he found _something_ out! All of those warnings…"Don't leave the castle grounds by yourself" "Don't climb the castle wall"…and then his awful family shows up and he just leaves with them! They were _terrible_ to him, Fraya, and all he does is tell me that he'll be back in January and goes, meek as a lamb!"

An awkward silence fell, broken by Elizabeth's agitated breathing. "…I'm sure he had a good reason behind it," she said lamely.

Elizabeth sighed heavily again and slumped forward, a dark expression on her normally cheery face. "Oh, I'll wager on that, Fraya, even though I don't happen to be a gambler: me. Again. It's always _me_ he's getting in trouble for. I'll be the death of him," she finished, her posture worsening. She flopped back onto the bed and curled up next to one of the pillows. "That's what's driving me out of my mind. What if he actually _dies_, Fraya? It'll be my fault, won't it? All for a little farmer's daughter with callused hands and her head full of faery-tales." She turned her head into the pillow and let out an extremely un-Elizabeth-like cuss. One that would rival a sailor's, by Fraya's reckoning.

Fraya patted her on the back, having not the slightest idea what she should do. "He'll be back, milady. In no time at all. Wagging his tail behind him."

* * *

Elizabeth took an unaccustomed nap after lunch and woke up feeling dizzy and even more out-of-sorts. It felt as if she hadn't been asleep for more than a few minutes, but the clock insisted that, in reality, it had been two hours and six-or-possibly-seven minutes. She knew that it was probably inappropriate to be sleeping or even taking naps in Gabriel's bed, but then, he wasn't here, was he? Had he been safe at home, she would have been content with staying in her own room, but as the situation was, she found that it was the only place she was able to get any decent rest (inappropriate as it may have been).

She had been out of sorts ever since the scrying incident the previous day, shortly after which she came to his room and began shuffling through the small hills of parchment that covered his writing desk. The note that had appeared inside the crystal orb was there, buried under blank musical scores.

The note was what had set her off. The note that she's first seen in the crystal orb, and now held in her hand. The note denied that Gabriel had gone with his family simply because he was too shocked to think clearly. He had had the time to write the note before he'd left/was taken. He could have _told _her about whatever-it-was he knew, instead of scribbling down a few quick sentences on a scrap of paper and leaving it for her to find.

It put her in a poor mood, and gave her a headache on top of that. Since she had a headache, it made it difficult for her to concentrate on a book, even though the book in particular was one she'd read twice before.

Elizabeth pulled on her heavy shoes and tangled the laces into something that resembled a knot. She briefly considered going to her room to get something to put over her dress—it had cooled down a bit since noon—and came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth that many stairs to climb. She grabbed one of Gabriel's many slightly faded, worn black shirts from his closet and pulled it on instead. She had to roll up the sleeves nearly ten times before her hands stuck out, and it hung past her knees, but it was warm enough.

Star was happy enough to see her when she got to the stables. It'd been a while since Elizabeth had last ridden, with all the distractions and whatnots happening. Fraya and Ella had led the mare around during that time, and ridden her around at least for an hour every day. Elizabeth had made a point to stop in to brush her down very evening or so, but she had been forgetting.

They spent what remained of the afternoon and a good part of the early evening riding around the castle grounds, all the way around from the front gates to the back, where there once had been a good many vegetable gardens and apple trees. It was all overgrown with thistle and weeds now…and roses, of course. Elizabeth, who couldn't have seen them fourteen-or-so years ago, thought the place looked like a garden that faeries had tended, planting all sorts of colorful, inedible weeds and letting vines overtake the branches of the apple trees. Past that was an overgrown caretaker's cottage, the boards sagging or broken through, and plants ground through the holes in the roof.

She paused and let Star rest for a while and graze. The castle, as big as it was, seemed to have shrunk to half of its size in the distance. After half an hour or so of aimless wandering, she kicked Star into a light trot back towards the stables. In the past year, she'd become familiar with the grounds, but not so much that she felt comfortable riding in full dark. With the grounds untended, it was much too easy for Star to step in a hole or trip over rock in the high grass and snap one of her legs.

By the time Star was unsaddled, brushed down, fed, and all of her tack had been cleaned, Elizabeth felt marginally more normal. Her headache had gone, for one. When she went back in, supper was already set out, making her realize she was starving. She ate, drank more wine than usual, laughed at Kal and Allie's recollection of their spell-casting mishap, and listened to Herbert's stories after dinner with her mind dulled by wine and sleepiness while Rose dozed on her lap. After everyone had turned in and the table had been cleared of all of the leftover desserts and wine glasses, she made her way back to Gabriel's room without thinking about what she was doing and fell asleep.

She didn't dream, of Gabriel or scrying or anything else.

* * *

Bogged down with school assignments, will finish the story as soon as time allows.


	21. Chapter 21

"You know I can't smile without you

I can't smile without you

I can't laugh and I can't sing

I'm finding it hard to do anything."

"I Can't Smile Without You," Barry Manilow

* * *

The following two months were incredibly depressing for Elizabeth (not to mention particularly uneventful), and to go into the details of November and December would only be depressing, and give the fellow readers an oddly powerful urge to strike desks with their fists and cry out in frustration and agony for our protagonist.

Since the desks' union has formed a complaint about being struck in such a way, the months of our heroine's wait will be effectively summarized instead.

Late October melted into November with a rain of leaves and miserable sleet. While the leaves were bright and crunchy and therefore enjoyable, the sleet was not, nor was the frost that crept over the castle grounds in the early morning. The gardens, however, looked quite lovely covered in a thin layer of ice—the roses bloomed all-year round, as Elizabeth had previously discovered.

Herbert and Kal were quite delighted with the change in weather: Herbert because, due to his prolonged residence in the mid-East, it had been a while since he'd seen snow; for Kal, it was the drop in temperature. Rose didn't care much about the cold either way, as long as she had a nice fire which she could nap in front of. Allie complained about it, caught a cold, got over it, and caught one again. Death spent most of his time flying around the grounds, often accompanying Elizabeth on her afternoon rides. Elizabeth soon became used to holding lengthy conversations with a bird.

The lot of them, after a long debate (less than half-hearted on Elizabeth's account), decided that Jason's role as a villain was past, and took the wards off of the room he was in. He left almost immediately after, but continued to pay visits every-so-often, not quite on a regular basis. He spent a good deal of his time talking to Herbert, who seemed to fascinate him, and offered to teach Elizabeth the finer points on spell-casting. She politely declined, preferring being taught by Allie. While she no longer wanted to tear Jason's spine out and beat him with it, she didn't trust him completely.

Herbert discussed with them at length about his visits with his other friends, Marten and Tarren, and about their absent-minded scheming. The lot of them received it without much difficulty, as they all were well-accustomed with abnormality. The whole bit about actually crossing over to a separate world was kept open for discussion, as it was an issue that required some time to think about. Herbert explained to them the basics about the way they would be traveling, but didn't go into specifics: no need to frighten the children off, after all.

Kal's hair began to grow out. Allie insisted that he keep it pulled back from his face, even if it wasn't as long as it had been. She, Herbert, and Elizabeth spent one night braiding each other's hair, much to Kal's relief. It gave him a break from all of the hair-tugging nonsense. He received two visits from Bob, the poor confused lieutenant. One was concerning his earlier threat to raze all of the immortal law-enforcer's homes to the ground if they (also known as Roberta Bobette Robertson) interfered with them again, as they were sent Bob ahead to interfere with them (once again). Bob tearfully requested a signed document which would state that Kal had ceased all relations with Allie, and that his threat about all the razing was a simple jest. Kal replied by setting the document on fire with one of the over-active floating candles. Bob returned a week later, this time accompanied by a small, ridiculous-looking pink and green rabbit and several documents to be signed (a copy of the former, a form for the apology of the destruction of the former, and another with a vague threat to castrate him if he kept up his distressful behavior—or, at least, to make a serious and only slightly vague threat to do so).

Kal replied to by punting the rabbit off the castle grounds and staring in a slightly hostile manner at Bob (which was more than enough to get rid of the poor creature—he rushed home and spent the remainder of the week in a safe, dark corner).

Fraya and Ella went about their regular routines; nothing out of the usual for them. Ella did, however, learn the trick of speaking to cats and held lengthy intellectual conversations with Rose; most of said conversation included the capture of finches and string and naps. After becoming bored with this, she made a point of learning to speak to birds. This was futile, as they avoided her when they saw her coming. Ella took this personally, as she hadn't noticed that Rose had taken a fancy in trailing after her.

November seemed to last quite a while; the leaves remained, bright and fiery on their branches until the first snowfall. Winter clothes were rummaged out of closets; Herbert went to town and bought a set of offensive clothing for the cold weather. Kal was sent back to their house in Paris for the rest of Allie's clothing, only to find that their humble dwelling was a bit more than scorched logs and torn furniture. A healthy family of rats were nesting in what bits of rags remained. Just as well, he supposed; he considered the Paris part of their life to be past. He never really liked it all that much to being with. Too many Parisians. It gave him no grief to fly away from the city, a considerable bundle of unpaid-for clothing in his arms.

Herbert learned of the concept of molding damp snow into spherical shapes and throwing them at opponents, and delighted in the game for hours at a time. He also developed a mild case of frostbite in a six-hour snowball match with Ella.

November slipped away into December, and gave way to the usual pre-Yule festivities. The dining room (to decorate the entire castle would have been too much of a chore) was done up in a plethora of colorful decorations, ribbons, and candlesticks. The candles themselves were convinced to remain peaceful, for the time being. Eggnog was made and drunk with mixed reactions that mattered little, for after the third glass, no-one really noticed the taste of the drink (Fraya had been rather liberal with the rum).

Jason materialized to join them for dinner twice before Christmas, behaving politely enough. He was quite the charming houseguest when he wasn't obsessed with revenge upon the host. He declined their invitation to join them for their Christmas dinner demurely, with vague references to previous engagements. He'd decided that a vague reference to a previous engagement was a wonderful excuse for getting drunk in his home and reminiscing about Marie to his goblin servants (often breaking down into sobs and waking up the next morning with no clue as to where he was—though if it was in a brothel, he rarely complained).

Elizabeth spent Christmas morning in the castle and the rest of the day at her father's. Her aunt from a few miles joined them, as did her husband and several children. On any other occasion, Elizabeth would have groaned inwardly at the sight of her cousins, but they prevented the need to converse with her aunt. She had no desire to go into depths about the ring on her finger; her father knew about Gabriel, and that was everyone in her family she wanted to know.

She ended up spending a week in her old room. She thought she'd sleep straight through in the old familiarity of her room, but she kept waking up in the dead of the night, not knowing where she was.

January showed little if any difference from December (possibly less interesting, as one knew not to expect presents). Elizabeth located a small calendar in town and set it on the table in her room back at the castle. She crossed off the days as they passed, counting until the twenty-first. After a day of anxious waiting that gave her a dreadful headache, she began finding ways to keep herself busy. She spent another week back at the farm, helping around the house. She worked at her magic, and found herself improving marginally. She would never be a great illusionist—she was mainly a healer, Allie had decided.

She helped fix meals and helped clean. Fraya and Ella didn't need the help, so she suggested one take a bit of a break. Fraya volunteered and began sleeping in until two in the afternoon. Herbert occasionally volunteered a new recipe that he'd picked up on his travels—one or two were actually edible. They discussed his suggestion of going to his dream-world (as Elizabeth thought of it), and put it to the side to come back to later.

On the morning of the twenty-first, she ate a large breakfast, as was usual, and went back up to her room to bundle up in her warmest coat and scarf and mittens. She went out to the gardens, a favorite book tucked under one arm.

Elizabeth had noticed a small, wooden platform at the top of the castle wall, near the main gates—probably built on a whim, to sit comfortably on the wall's edge. There was a rusted metal ladder propped in front of it, which had probably been propped against the wall for quite some time. It held.

She sat cross-legged on the wall with her book open in her lap, and waited.


	22. Chapter 22

A/N: Happy (Belated) New Year and a Merry Christmas…or whichever-holiday. I realize the chapter's kinda a couple of months late, but shit happens. :]

One last mile…a green one. (if you read Stephen King, then you'll get it. )

… it's almost finished. :]

"How strange!

Like a spell does the evening bind me!

And a deep and languid charm

I feel without alarm

With its melody enwind me

And all my heart subdue."

-Marguerite, Gounod's "Faust".

* * *

**Somewhere**

……?

Bright—very bright. Snow. Cold…yes, it's cold. Your feet—they're numb. Move, get the blood flowing again.

There. Not so hard—wait. The ground's not supposed to turn over on itself that way. Alright. Wait. Just stand still; brace yourself against that tree. Wait for the ground to stop moving so much…

Better. Now step forward: not too fast, get your bearings. You slip, and you won't be able to get up again, not in the condition you're in. Steady; careful.

Ah! Neck. What's that…? Think…right. Chain. Heavy, cold. The end attaches to that half-ring, remember? That iron clasp. Just snap it off…there. You're free. Worry about the damned collar later.

Careful, now, don't fall on your face. That's the last thing you want to do. Quiet as you can—don't wake them up. You can't run—not right know—and you know it. Get away first.

They're sleeping. They won't be up for a while yet…when they do, you have to be gone.

Yes, they'll try and follow, right, of course. That's not a problem, not yet. Just…move. Get away.

There. Not so bad; at least the world's stopped tipping itself around. Get those legs of yours to keep moving for a while longer. No, not that way! Not the main road—you can't be seen. Stay off it, idiot, unless there's no other choice!

May as well just go back now if you're going to risk getting seen.

Trees. Not much, but enough. Good enough cover. Keep walking, now. How far away…?

If you keep moving, you'll make it. Can't get lost or caught or seen.

Just keep moving.

**

* * *

  
**

Around the time that Elizabeth was getting ready to go out, Allie had just woken up and begun her morning routine. Her face was washed and her hair had been brushed out and re-braided; all that remained was deciding on the outfit for the day. The decision usually took up most of her thought process, and when Kal entered the room via the window, she barely acknowledged him.

"Slept in?" he asked, crossing the room and tucking his wings in as he went.

She flapped a hand in what she guessed to be his general direction. "Just a minute." Her eyes scanned over the four dress combinations she had spread out over the bed, finally settling on a darkish-brown outfit. She scooped it up and made her way towards the adjoining bathroom. "Alright. I'm listening now."

"Never mind it." Kal took a seat on the empty section of the bed and raked his fingers through the tangles in his hair. It was still shorter than what he was used to—to fashionably short for his liking. Fashion was for pansies and Allie. "Need any help in undressing, there?"

"Very funny," she replied dryly. "I think you were better when you didn't have a sense of humor. And don't you say 'I never mentioned it was a joke', or something like that." She folded her nightclothes neatly and placed them to the side, replacing them with petticoats, stockings, and the dress. It was a souvenir from their small vacation to Spain the previous year, in the springtime. Pleasant, but cut unfortunately short by a beheading incident on Kal's part. They hadn't been back to that particular part of Spain since.

"And, now that I'm proper," she announced, stepping out, "You can have the honor of lacing me up in the back."

He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. "God forbid I see you _ankles_, your Highness. You, the most virtuous woman in all of France! We sleep in the same room, but! perhaps I should avert mine eyes."

Allie struggled to keep her face neutral and smothered her laugh with a cough. "That's not funny, Kal. It really _isn't_ proper, you know…my poor grandmother's probably spinning in her grave. Partly about the state of your hair," she added with a wince, and picked up her comb. "Care to explain why it's all wet and full of…is that _sea-weed_?" she exclaimed, kneeling on the bed and taking a closer look.

He shrugged and edged away, making a valiant effort to put distance between him and the bone-handled comb. "The water was nice, so I went for a swim before coming home. Keep that thing away from me, will you? I can comb it myself."

Allie scoffed and plucked a strand of the sea-weed out of his hair. "I see you've done a fine job of it already!" Ignoring the scowl he was directing at her, she asked him to sit still; of course, she used his full name, and it was more of a command than a proposition. "Funny," she remarked, "how you can stand having your hands completely shattered, but not a little hair-brushing."

He craned his head over his shoulder, fixing his purple eye on her. "It's completely different. At least they _meant_ to torture me, while _you _claim to be doing a favor." He collapsed backwards onto her lap, feigning exhaustion whilst his torso effectively pinned the brush down. "They say _I'm_ evil."

She laughed and wiggled one of her hands free, taking the opportunity to grab a fistful of his bangs. "That's because you are, you big freak, you. Dear God, what are you eating when I'm not looking? You must weight over three hundred pounds!" She pulled out her other hand from under his back, and resignedly set aside the comb. Knowing him, next he would incinerate the thing or something of the like. Him having full access to his magickal abilities was not always the best thing.

"Only three-hundred-thirty. Unlike you, I'm not made out of blown-glass and tissue-paper."

"Clearly. Mind sitting up? You're cutting off my circulation."

"Serves you right." Kal made a theatrical effort of straining to sit up. Halfway through his heroic efforts, he abruptly swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Allie caught the look on his face and groaned, fell over onto her back, and made a face at the canopy. "Don't tell me—you just took it to your head to do something. Something that seems like an excellent idea right now, but later on I'm going to hit you upside the head and say 'What were you thinking, you_ kiiyen_?!'. Right?"

"No. We're going to go to the coast and spend the day at the beach. Right now. The weather's nice, for once--"

"Meaning, of course, that it's cold enough to freeze the nose off my face," she interrupted with a sigh.

"—and it's sunny. Terrible, but you—for some reason—seem to like bright sunlight. Come on, Princess. You like the ocean."

"Not in the winter, I don't!" she exclaimed, meanwhile making a catalogue of the things she would need for the day. Kal had taken it to his head to go to the coast for the day, and once an idea of that sort was in his head, he could be as stubborn as…well, herself. "I'll catch influenza, if I'm lucky! Pneumonia, most likely."

Kal scooped her up from the bed and set her on her feet. "You're a great healer, it won't matter."

"So caring."

He grabbed a heavy coat out of the closet and threw it around her shoulders. "There. It's not that could out, you know…besides, I'll keep you warm enough," he added jokingly. "It'll be…what's that word you use? It'll be _nice_."

"And what about Elizabeth?" Allie replied, partly because of her genuine worry for her friend…and partly because she didn't quite fancy the idea of spending a day out in the cold. "I haven't had a chance yet to see her today, but I checked up on her mentally a little while ago. The poor thing's outside in the courtyard, waiting for Gabriel to come home."

Kal rolled his eyes upwards in imitation of her. "She's _an adult_, Princess. Elizabeth can watch herself for the day. If it would make you happier, I'll get that crazy magician to keep one of his eyes on her." He broke into a grin at her shudder, and sobered up a moment later. "I checked up on her a little while ago, too, Princess. She's doing fine. If she was planning on doing something drastic—taking a leap off the castle wall, say—I'd have known."

There was a brief moment in which Allie tried to call to mind all of the conceivable excuses_ not_ to go…and came up with a series of blanks. It was only for the day, after all (a quick check of Kal's thoughts confirmed this).

"You're worse than a child," she sighed, half-heartedly crossing the room to retrieve her hat and pulling it down over her ears. With a pang of regret, she realized that she had probably just made all the time she had put into her hair that morning for nil. Unfortunately, it was either flattened hair or lack of ears. Buttoning up her coat, she continued. "But alright. I'll come along, just to make sure you don't kill anything—the _second_ I start to sneeze, we're coming back." -_And I mean that, Kalendrakk Raee—last time you decided to stay 'just a while longer', my fingers turned white.-_

He grinned broadly. With his full scope of emotions returned, it was becoming remotely less frightening. "We'll leave on your word, Princess, and without a speck of blood on my hands or frost on yours."

She laughed and stretched up to peck him on the corner of his jaw. "I'll go tell someone we're leaving. I'll blame it on you, by-the-bye."

**

* * *

  
**

The room's original intent wasn't to give the person therein visions of any sort. It was an unexpected side effect, mostly upon magick-users or those affected by magick of any sort. The room's original intention wasn't to be a room at all, in fact; rather, it was to act as one collective door. Once the family living in the castle realized the potential of such doors, they hired the services of a wandering magician from Persia to build them a series of these doors. He obliged, finishing the project after a year and then leaving to continue his wandering.

The family gathered all the available knowledge there was on the sort of doors that they now had access to. Such information was difficult to come by, and the years passed. Unfortunately, a small disaster forced them out of their house before they learned how to operate such doors. Not to be denied the information they had worked so hard for, they traded their souls for immortality, as to have more time without the downside of aging. Over a decade later, they discovered that, rather than go through countless, time-consuming spells and sacrifices, the door could simply be opened by sending through a sub-species of daemon. This sort of daemon had never been named, but after the only known natural birth of one such, everyone began calling them 'drakks'. These drakks, normally created after a long, complicated process of spells, seemed to counter-act the magick caused by the doors, and were therefore able to pass through them without difficulty. After they had passed through, any magick surrounding or emulating from the door in question was temporarily rendered neutral.

Herbert, as the wandering magician now called himself, wasn't a drakk, but the remnants of an ancient civilization. The legend was that, perhaps even before the period of recorded time, a colony of people suddenly appeared out of thin air. They never spoke of where they came, and seemed to be content to co-exist with the other humans. After some time, the other humans realized two things; that occasionally, one of these strangers would disappear, re-appearing in the same spot anywhere from days to weeks later. This coupled with the fact that they didn't seem to age made the others grow wary of the strangers, and they were thrown out of the community. Bits and pieces of their history were learned from various cultures; forced to wander to prevent suspicion, their separate tales encountered hundred eager ears, which recorded and then passed on enough information to turn them into legend. These people, it was told, came from a separate plane entirely; a strange place where immortal beings were common and daemons lived with mortals. Where magick was as common-place as dirt. Where these immortal beings occasionally disappeared to, re-appearing at will upon our own soil.

Now Herbert, after the thousands of years he had spent wandering Earth, had made up his mind to bring over his new friends to his home.

"And you too, of course," he said to Rose. At the moment, he was curled up in a patch of sunlight that fell through one of the library windows. Rose was resting likewise, in the light from a window one over to the left. "I think you would quite like the place, so I do."

Rose yawned and twisted over onto her back, stretching to her full length (not much more than a foot, tail excluded). _Do you? I like this home myself. Lots of nice birds…sun…smells…good humans that feed me._

"Ah, but wait until you set foot into the place that's to be your home! I was there once before, and--"

"Herbert?" Allison had entered the library, and was now standing uncertainly in the doorway. "Were you…meow-ing?"

Rather than sit up and turn his head, he popped his eyes out and stretched them out on their stalks to look over his shoulder. "I was telling Rose about the home I want to show you and your court—ah, your friends, sorry. How may I be of help, Mlle. Allie?"

"Oh…Kal and I are going out for the day—he got the crazy notion in his head to drag me along to the coast, and I thought I should tell someone. You know, just in case someone plans an assassination attempt on us or something."

"Sounds lovely! You have fun at the beach!"

Allie grinned semi-doubtfully and took her leave with a wave.

Herbert retracted his eyes and blinked away the dust-motes that had settled onto the unprotected orbs. "My, what an odd bunch they are…where was I?" He scratched thoughtfully at the beard-stubble on his chin while he tried to pick up his train of thought. "Oh, yes! The home over there is quite lovely. A bit tricky to navigate, I will admit, but more than enough spaces for you to nap in. And, since your humans will be also coming—hopefully—there will be plenty of food."

Rose pondered this for a moment, grooming her remaining front paw. The bronze foreleg gleamed in the sunlight. She had nearly gotten used to it, though she occasionally forget it wasn't her own and attempted to groom it. The metal left a bitter taste in her mouth. _Well, I suppose if every-one else is going, it makes sense for me to follow. Tell me, when are you planning this move?_

"Oh, as soon as the tall fellow returns. Elizabeth made it quite clear she's not going anywhere without him."

She cast an eye in his direction. _Nor will I, old one._

"Naturally." Herbert didn't bring up the possibility of Gabriel not returning at all. It simply wouldn't be tactful. Especially not to his own cat. "And I'm not all that old, Rosie."

Rose laughed in the way cats do, with her eyes. _Is that so, green-eyes?_

"Aye, so it is." He smiled and reached over to scratch behind her ears. "I'm simply a wandering magician from Persia, hear? I don't want you spreading my life-story around to your court, Rosie. Mine life is a private affair"

She purred and playfully swatted at the frayed cuff of his sleeve. _I'll try to resist their interrogations._

_**

* * *

  
**_

Henri was awake an hour before dawn, making necessary, tedious repairs to the roof of his stables. With the wind of the previous night, a nearby tree branch had snapped off and fallen through the roof, making a sizeable hole, but thankfully not harming any of his livestock.

By the time noon had finally rolled around, his back had settled into a low, steady ache, matching those of the fingers he had smashed whilst hammering boards into place. A nap seemed to be in order. He was no longer a hale and healthy thirty, and it seemed to be taking a toll on his mind as well as his back. All of the commotion of the previous week was probably responsible for part of the blame. He usually was out of sorts after a visit from his sister. Usually, so was Elizabeth. When she had been younger, she would make a stealthy escape once her cousins had arrived, preferring to play by herself or with Jocelyn, sometimes until her cousins had fallen asleep. As she had grown older, she seemed to tolerate them a little more, but would often make excuses to leave.

After she had left the previous November, she had only returned to visit her home on two occasions. Since the beginning of this November, she had come six times, staying for anywhere from three days to a week on each visit. Henri certainly wasn't unhappy to have her visit; she was, after all, his own child. On each occasion, however, she seemed decidedly unhappy, and talked almost constantly in a way that was very unlike her. When she arrived on Christmas afternoon, she actually spent the remainder of that day and the rest of the week with her cousins.

He shook his head wearily and saddled up his horse for the ride into town. At the moment, there was nothing he wanted more than to go back into the house and take a mid-afternoon nap…but the chickens needed feed, and the plow-horse had thrown a shoe that would need to be replaced. With his hired hand away visiting relatives, all of the chores fell on him. "Let's be on our way, Geoff," he sighed, settling into the saddle and nudging the horse forward. The empty leather carry-bag slung around his shoulders bounced against his hip, in time with the horse's gait.

An hour later, it was weighted down with the feed, dragging at his neck as he made his way to the blacksmith's (and another additional weight). Halfway across the street, a blur of movement caught his eye.

"Merle!" The librarian exclaimed, waving extravagantly. "A moment?"

Henri jumped out of the way of an oncoming horse and cart, cursing himself for stopping in the middle of the road. "Now?" he shouted back, hoping that the old man would get the hint and change his mind. The librarian was a friend to his daughter, and Henri did treat him respectably…but in his personal opinion, the librarian (who had lived in the town, seemingly, since God was young) was terribly boring. If it were un-enjoyable ways to waste his afternoon, he already had a list of them to get through.

The librarian made more exaggerated motions that Henri should come over, and, shivering, went back into the library.

Rolling his eyes heavenward, Henri got out of the road and followed suit. "Afternoon, Monsieur," he said, letting the door fall closed behind him.

He straightened his spectacles and, after acknowledging him, returned to his customary chair. He appeared to be in the middle of taking inventory. "And the same to you." He promptly became engrossed with his work. "So, how fares your guest?"

"Guest?" he echoed. He hadn't had any guests since the holiday season, and certainly wasn't expecting any more for quite some time. He quickly ran down his mental list of people who may have stopped by in town to pay a visit, and came up with only blanks. "Begging your pardon, I'm not expecting any guests, Monsieur. Could be you're mistaken."

The librarian shook out his hands and pushed himself back from his ink-splattered desk. "My apologies, Henri—I'm a little behind in my work, and, well…you know how an old man's attention will tend to wander. Could you repeat what you said last?"

"I said I'm not expecting anyone."

The librarian nodded in conformation. "Yes, he said that he was dropping by uninvited…I presumed you wouldn't mind, and gave him directions to your house. I'm sorry if that was a bit too much to take onto myself. You must have just missed him on your way to town!"

"Who did I miss?" Henri asked, all the more confused.

"'_Whom'_", he corrected automatically. "And I apologize again, I should have told you right from the start. Your daughter's friend—I'm afraid I didn't catch his name. I can't really be blamed, he's such a strange fellow! He was here just last year in town, as a matter of fact; tall, half-starved looking creature. Rather furry."

He blinked. "Excuse me, I'll have to be going."

**

* * *

  
**

There was a thin layer of snow, enough to capture the thin impression of footprints that led up to his doorstep. Certainly not his own; his could be seen going to the barn, and were less than half the size.

After Geoff had been put into his stall, he went around to the side door and opened it carefully. "…Gabriel?" he called in, taking a moment to recall the name. "You in there?"

"Sorry…someone passed by, and I did not want to be seen."

He closed the door behind him and went into the kitchen. Gabriel sat at one of the tables, making the sturdy oak table into something of a child's toy and looking like several types of bad health. His clothes were soaked through, his fur and hair matted. "The door was unlocked," he added apologetically.

"It usually is," he found himself saying. "Never had a reason to lock it." He paused, giving his mind a moment to recover from the shock of coming home to an eight-foot tall humanoid man sitting in his kitchen. "Where the…where have you been? You've been gone for months! My daughter's half out of her mind!"

Gabriel frowned, his thin hands resting uneasily on the table. "I'm…not quite sure. It's somewhat complicated—Elizabeth is well?" He looked across the room at Henri, who was struck silent for a moment. If he recalled, this Gabriel wasn't more than three years away from his thirtieth birthday; and yet, the expression of the man across from him was closer to that of a weary child.

"As fine as she can be," he replied, taking a seat in the remaining chair.

He flinched at the tone of Henri's voice and looked down at his hands. "I will be going home directly," he said, clearing his throat. "First, I have to ask a favor of you; only this, and I'll never ask another."

"Yes?" Henri asked, more than a bit apprehensively.

Gabriel straightened fully in his chair and pulled his hair back from his neck and the thick piece of iron that encircled the width of it. The dull grey surface was scored by scratches, thin silvery scores that went quite deep in some places. "I tried to break it off, but…" he held up a hand, tipped by dulled, blunted claws. He caught Henri's eyes, and dropped them just as quickly. "I could not bear to be seen like this," he said, gesturing towards the collar before returning his hands to the table. The fingers twisted themselves together, strange and ungainly. "Too often I've been degraded to a common animal, Monsieur. For her to see me with…" He trailed off again, face downcast. His eyes took on the dull, overcast look of one recalling a memory; by the way his hands curled into loose fists, Henri would be willing to guess that it was an unpleasant one.

The low, plaintive thought came again to his mind: _If only I had broken off the planned engagement while there was still time…Had I stopped this at the beginning, she would have not met this creature—none of this would be happening. She would have had a normal life, not caught up in all these crazed 'adventures'._

_But, _another voice answered—supposedly his conscience. It often reminded him of his late wife, now long since dead of influenza.

Ah, 'but'. _'But'_ he makes her happy.

_Dear God_, he thought, uncertain of just what to pray for. He drew in a deep breath, and exhaled his next sentence. "How can I help?"

**

* * *

  
**

The snow had stopped falling two chapters ago, which was sat well enough with her; at least she wouldn't have to worry about the pages warping. Scraps of dirty grey clouds skirted across sections of the pale blue sky, occasionally allowing a few watery rays of sunlight to break through and lift her spirits a little. The wind never quite stopped, seeming content to tug at sections of her clothes and steal the warmth from her exposed brow and cheeks, then over to kick up the thin snow into spirals and minute drifts. The trees themselves seemed brittle enough to snap, could she reach out far enough to push one. Every so often, she would dig her handkerchief out of her pocket with one hand (clad in two pairs of woolen mittens) to wipe at her streaming eyes. A flock of sparrows provided the only birdsong as they squabbled over the seed she had set out for them in the courtyard.

Time passed, unmarked except by the turned pages of her book (and of the fumbling of her hands as she got a hang of turning the pages with two pairs of mittens covering her fingers). The sun remained hidden for the most part, remaining unhelpful for use as a clock. As more chapters went by, she found herself having to go back and re-read over pages and paragraphs that her eyes had skipped over whilst her mind was occupied. Ordinarily, she found it easy to lose herself in the plot of a novel; it was a character flaw of hers, to become so engrossed in the book that she forgot all that was going on around her. Today, it seemed, her problem had been solved. She trudged through the book, rather than read through, pausing every two pages or so to look up and scan the dead, uninviting horizon of the forest for signs of life; specific life.

Another page, another scarf of wind that teased it out of her hand and ruffled the others. She pulled the mittens off of one hand with her teeth, finding her lost page as quickly as she could and returning her hand to the mittens and her coat pocket. An ache specific to that type of most dry, biting cold had settled into her hand in the few moments it had been exposed to the wind.

_Gabriel. _The name tugged at her mind, and she looked up for the umpteenth time. The forest was as lifeless as it had been the last time, the trees barely casting their dim, grey shadows on the dim, grey-white layer of snow. Unperturbed, she returned to her book and restarted her attempt to understand the plot.

**

* * *

  
**

The dense forest surrounding his home wasn't familiar to him; he had spent his life inside the grounds, not exploring the surrounding property. A fairly visible path still remained, though only under drifts of old leaves and branches. One of the latter caught onto the hem of a pant leg, momentarily throwing Gabriel off balance. He put out his hands to break his fall

_and went down on his stomach, ankle twisting in the burrow of some animal or another. Cursing, he pushed himself up on his elbows and dislodged his foot. Sprawling flat on his face hadn't made his list of ways he wanted Elizabeth to see him for the first time in months._

"_Are you alright?" she called down from her spot on the wall. He could hear her barely-controlled giggles. The smile on her face made the fall worth every tiny scratch; even from that distance, he could see the way it crinkled her eyes up at the corners. His vision wasn't quite as preternatural it had been, but it was sharp enough._

_It seemed that the time spent around her had been enough to start the spell's reversal; throughout the separation, it continued, shrinking his teeth and claws. The horns and tail were the most painful, retracting back into the skull and spine until he thought the almost-audible grating sound would drive him out of his mind. The fur was all but gone, the bridge of his nose almost fully developed. Whatever his twisted family had dragged him away from his life for, by the time he had reverted to an almost normal human, they had all but kicked him out onto the road. A blessing; the instant they left, he was on his way home._

_Getting to his feet (less of a struggle than usual—he seemed to be shrinking), he returned the grin. "I'll meet you in the courtyard!" he yelled._

_She waved and turned to go back down the ladder. The sun was out, picking out all of the shadows in the profile of her turned face and the folds of her winter coat and highlighting the wind-messed strands of hair. He remembered everything in that moment in perfect detail; even a year later, he could still recall it. Everything, down to the minute flicker of her eye when her foot slipped, and the way the book that had been in her hand fell, turning over twice before landing at the foot of the wall._

_The vines caught her, at first, but as overgrown and over-sized as they were, they broke under her weight even as Gabriel broke into a run. It wasn't that far from his standing point to the base of the wall—not far at all. _

_There was no reason he shouldn't have caught her._

_Perfect, insane detail; later his mind's eye picked out the tiny streams of blood that leaked from her mouth and eye and ear, how the light caught it. Her smile. The dead leaves that had broken off and caught in her hair, the scratch across her forehead. Later, thinking over and over how the scratch would never heal, how he would have to bury her with that ugly red mark running through one of her eyebrows._

_There was no reason he didn't get there in time._

_If only he had been just a little faster._

and grabbed onto a tree, catching his balance and sense of place. He was close enough to make out the castle wall through the grey forest, and continued in that direction. He stepped on a section of ice; when it broke, he flashed back to the sound her skull made when…when it…

_It never happened, _he reminded himself, once more running. _It's never going to happen._

The trees thinned out and soon stopped. His foot sank into a hole—probably from some animal or another—and he stumbled, nearly falling flat on his face.

"Gabriel! Are you alright?" Elizabeth, getting to her feet, a smile spreading across her face. The one that would have made it worth nearly breaking his nose just to see.

_Now I'll say that I will meet her in the courtyard,_ he thought, frozen. _She'll turn and slip and fall and her head…her head will make that awful sound. She won't die immediately. I'll sit with her bleeding in my arms until she does, and then I'll fall asleep with her dead body against my chest. _

A dry choke escaped his mouth.

"What?" she called down. She bent her head lower.

"DON'T MOVE!" By the way she flinched back, he realized her had all but screamed the words he had meant to call up. Her foot slipped. By then, he was already running. The book fell, turning over exactly twice. The vines broke.

She fell into his arms.

**

* * *

  
**

Herbert looked up at the sound of the closing door. "Ah, I see you're back. Did you have a nice time at the beach?"

Allie shot him a disdainful look, hopping down form Kal's arms. Her teeth were chattering too much for a verbal response.

"I did," Kal answered, folding away his wings neatly. He shook the icicles that had formed into his hair out onto the entrance floor. "Little Princess here, on the other hand, swears that she's caught pneumonia."

-Little Princess _is going up to her room and lighting a large fire!_- Allie snapped, already passing Herbert on the steps. _-In fact, Little Princess thinks she'll be using a certain violin for kindling!-_

Kal laughed and followed up the stairs. "I'm sure you'll try. Herbert, d'you mind not sitting in the middle of the staircase?"

"My apologies." He edged over to the side, bringing his coat along with him. His hat and travel-bag lay on the step below his feet, his walking stick propped up against the lower banister. Rose had taken it upon herself to make a nest in the center of the pile.

"Have a mind to go somewhere?"

"If my mind's content to follow me along," he replied, smiling. "Yours usually stays with you, doesn't it? Convenient thing, that. We'll need it—not quite yet, though, so feel welcome to take a bit of a rest. The other two probably won't be awake for a while yet." He yawned and stretched back on the stairs, folding his arms under his head. "I think I'll nap myself. If you could be ready by midnight or so, I think that would be reasonable." He noticed the scowl on Kal's face (not particularly hard to notice, as it was usually there) and offered an apologetic grin. "Sorry…I guess that didn't make much sense, did it? I would start over..."

"Never mind." His small talent for telepathy wasn't very effective, but it didn't matter at this distance. He sorted through the jumble of thoughts in the forefront of Herbert's mind. "We're going to that dream-place of yours?"

Herbert sneezed violently. "Ah! Cussed magic, always making me sneeze!"

Kal lost his contact on the magician's thoughts. "Well, that's just--"

_-Kal! Get over here!-_

He glanced down at Herbert. "Seems I've been summoned."

He waved a hand in dismissal. "Fraya set out your bags—pack whenever you're ready."

**

* * *

  
**

"You didn't have to yell so _loud,_" he complained. "What's the matter?"

Allie grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the library, gesturing at the couch. "Look!"

Elizabeth motioned for them to be quiet. "Try not to wake him up," she whispered. "He can explain once he's rested."

Gabriel sighed in his sleep and turned over. His head was resting on Elizabeth's lap; his feet dangled off of the other end of the couch. She smiled down at him briefly before returning her attention to the others. "You two should get some rest as well—we're leaving before the day is out."

Allie, who had managed to recover from her shock, nodded and tiptoed back out of the room, Kal trailing after her.

* * *


	23. Chapter 23

"Hey-ho, let's go."

-The Ramones

* * *

The sun had all but set, turning the bare branches of the forest into inky silhouettes and setting a band of burnt orange on the horizon. The persisting wind had cleared the sky of the last of the clouds, leaving it a blameless shade of dark blue. It wouldn't be long before the night truly set in.

The reflection of the fireplace danced across the glass of the window, setting the forest on fire with transparent flames. A silhouette shifted, yawned, and stretched out its limbs and tail.

Gabriel slid off the couch, kneeling on the cold floor. "Your legs must be asleep," he remarked softly. The library seemed impossibly quiet, the logs in the fire not quite daring to crackle.

Elizabeth smiled and gained her feet slowly. "Only a little," she admitted, rotating an ankle. "It'll pass in a minute." She shook out the creases in her skirts; the fire through shadows her slightly downturned profile, exaggerating the hollow of her eye. It struck him how tired she seemed, and felt a wave of guilt—not the first. She caught his eye and straightened up with a hand on his shoulder. Him kneeling, they came to roughly the same height. "Ready to face the crowd?"

He covered her hand with his own. "I would rather stay here with you. How does another few…days sound?"

"Like magick…until we would have to start eating the books." With her freed hand, she absently arranged his hair, moving away the strands that had fallen into his face. "Would you rather rest a while longer? I'm sure they wouldn't mind…we've already been waiting months for you to come home. Another hour or so wouldn't make much of a difference."

It sounded incredibly tempting to curl back up on the couch with Elizabeth and doze off for another few hours; to listen to her heartbeat next to him and wind outside. Now that he was awake, it seemed that his nap had lasted only a matter of minutes.

"I have a feeling that there are other things to get to," he sighed. "As nice as that sounds."

She kept her hand on his as they left the comfortably dimness of the library, keeping up with his pace as best as she could as they navigated through the darker-yet corridors. The lamps hadn't been lit, he noticed; he himself rarely lit them, but Ella and Fraya had made a point of doing so since their arrival. Ajar doors gave him glimpses into rooms with sheets thrown over the furniture.

"Are we moving?" he asked, waiting at the top of a staircase for Elizabeth to catch up. He needn't ask where everyone else was; from what he could hear and smell, their friends were on the third floor of the east wing.

"That's something Herbert had best explain."

**

* * *

**

Explain he did, to a degree, occasionally turning to Allie for the finer points when it came to magick. This was often; Gabriel had to take a moment to put together the fractured explanation as they all sat expectantly looking at him.

"A separate world?" he said at last, glancing down at Elizabeth for confirmation. She nodded, her head resting against his chest. He smiled before returning his attention to his strange—and apparently other-worldly—guest. "And to get there, we pass through the mirrored room…but it can only be breached by…what spell, again?"

Herbert opened his mouth, paused, and turned to look pointedly at Allie.

"It's complicated," she said briefly. If she didn't want to go through the whole series of explanations she'd earlier attempted, Gabriel didn't blame her. The more that was explained to him, it seemed, the more confused he became. Magick and all its rules were beyond him. "But, to put it simply, there's a small loop-hole in the enchantment, and the doorway can be opened by you two gentlemen." She gestured towards Kal and himself. "_Drakks._ A specific explanation of '_why'_ would take an hour or so, but the gist would be that _your_ magicks temporarily short out theirs. Since Kal is natural-born, there's a small chance that it might not apply to him…but since he's recovered most of his magick abilities, I doubt it. The fact that you, Gabriel, don't have any magick talent doesn't matter, because you've been exposed to so many enchantments and spells."

"My friends found the other door," Herbert said, Allie's part being finished. "Unfortunately, it's under water—but only a few feet's worth, you won't drown unless you try to breathe it, of course.. The home is much like this--" he swept an arm around the guestroom they sat in "—but it's been abandoned for some centuries. Used to belong to the noble that oversaw the land, but the family died out and…well, you know how magick overruns abandoned homes." He surveyed the blank looks and added "I suppose not," in an undertone.

"And we could simply go through the doorway?" Gabriel asked. "Does it work the other way—could we return, as well?"

Herbert contemplated it, scratching at his beard stubble. "Think so. It should work either way, as long as either of you open it up."

It was a fantastic idea—an entire separate world. An entire, separate, magick-based world. "Would you wish to move there?" he asked Elizabeth.

"You heard what he said," she reminded him. "There's more of what we think of as _otherworldly_. You could go outside as _yourself_—you wouldn't have to hide away. Even if the spell does end up reversing itself," she added, curling her hand around his wrist, "it would be an _adventure_." Her face lit up at the last word; he could just picture her mind sorting through the endless possibilities of a world whose society was based around magick. Her expression answered his question more than anything.

"I guess you have your answer," he remarked to Herbert, who reacted by frowning.

"How so? You've not agreed, or said 'no'."

Kal, who had appeared to have been sleeping throughout the whole conversation, laughed shortly. "If Elizabeth asked him to chop off his right hand, he'd run to fetch the knife." He cracked open an eye and shot Elizabeth an amused look. "You should try it sometime, for a laugh," he joked, receiving Allie's elbow in his ribs in return. Ignoring the gesture, he straightened up and focused both his eyes on Gabriel. "Now that you've been brought up to date and everything, I think it's about time you told us what _you've _been up to, with all your furtive running-arounds and running-offs. We've all had our turns guessing, but it wore thin after a while."

"It started with that room—the one you stumbled upon, and the one our friend here helped to build." He focused on the wall directly across from him as he sorted his thoughts into order.

"It showed me…I guess it would be called a _possible_ future. I experienced it as if it had all truly happened. It was like an incredibly vivid dream; I was sitting at a grave. Elizabeth's. I was human—the spell had reversed itself completely, and it was because of that she was dead. The_ first_ time she was dead. At first, she had left the grounds by herself. I didn't know why, only that it brought her to danger, and I could not come to her aid quickly enough, because I was only as fast as a human. That was the first time."

"You went back again?" Herbert interjected, looking shocked. "It's not a….a sorcerer's _play toy!_ Well-versed in spells I may not be, but even I know that that was foolish! Things like that—non-intentional magick—can _trap_ a person, like a spider! How many times did you go back?"

"Only once more; I had to know what happened. Do you remember me asking you not to leave the castle grounds alone?" he asked Elizabeth. She had lost a little colour at the mention of her death, and her muscles were tense.

"I remember," she said in a low voice. "God, Gabriel, why didn't you tell me? Didn't you think that might have concerned me in the _slightest_?"

"I didn't know how you would react to my telling you. We're accustomed to magick more than some, but there's only so much a person can believe.

"I went back later in the day. Since you remained on the grounds, it changed; however, I saw you dead again. This time, it was my family that had killed you, in my refusal to leave with them. That's why I had to leave; it's also why I asked Giles to be left in the room. Allie had gone across the room to pick something up. Had he not been there, she would have been shot in the belly.

"I knew that if I went, I would be back soon. Only, I had to leave immediately when they came for me. If I had remained to any longer, even for a day, it would have been enough to set the complete reversal of my curse in motion. That couldn't happen, because they wanted me to open a portal. I didn't know that then, but know that you've explained the mirror-room to me; I'm certain that's what they were trying to do. If the curse went on reversing itself, they would have released me too early and nearly human. I needed to stay long enough to keep them away from the castle and for me to remain what I am."

Gabriel explained the rest as best as he could. He needed to remain in his inhuman form to sneak away from his family while they were still preoccupied with their spells; he had seen Elizabeth fall from the castle walls, and needed to be faster than humanly possible to catch her before she fell.

When he had finished, he was met with four incredulous stares.

"Didn't you think," Allie said at last, "This whole scheme would have been much easier to pull off had you at least told us?"

He had thought of it---almost immediately after seeing the first "possible future". "I did," he admitted reluctantly. "But then…had I told you, that would have changed everything again, wouldn't it? I had control—however small it may have been—over what I had seen the second time. I didn't want to risk altering the events to the point that they would get out of hand. I wanted to be sure," he finished, "that everyone was safe."

"You should have been born into _my_ family," Kal remarked with a short laugh. "A selfless protector and a murderer…we could have been switched at birth."

There was mixed laughter at his comment from everyone except Elizabeth, whose hand had become uncomfortably tight on Gabriel's wrist. "And what about ensuring your own safety? Did it ever occur to you to do that?" At the tone of her voice, the room fell awkwardly silent for a heartbeat, before Herbert made a loud remark about the window. An animated conversation soon followed between him and the others about the history of windows.

Gabriel slouched down on the couch until he was at eye-level. "I didn't do anything to get myself killed," he replied in a lowered voice.

"You purposefully put yourself into situations where you _could have_ been," she hissed. "It may as well have been the same thing!"

"Situations that I've become accustomed to by now--I always end up alright, don't I? I came home alive."

"But what if you _hadn't_? What if you died this time?" She dropped her eyes and consciously released her grip on his wrist. The back of his hand was marked by a few recently scarred-over gashes, probably picked up while he was trying to navigate his way through the wood while semi-conscious. She traced a finger over the marks, thin lines left uncovered by fur. He was grateful that the color of his clean shirt hid the also-new scar at the side of his neck, where the joint of his collar had previously been.

When she spoke, she fought to keep her voice lowered. "I need you as much as you need me, you stubborn mule. I don't_ want_ you to risk your life to save mine, do you understand? I don't have a death wish--I can protect myself. If something ever happens where you would have to put your own life in danger to save mine, I don't want you dying for me." Her fingers, too small and too fragile by comparison, even with their own batch of tiny scars and calluses, laced themselves between his fingers. "It may seem terribly romantic for the moment, but once you die, it turns stale. I've lost you once before, and I don't want to again."

He pulled her body closer to his and rested his chin on the top of her head. Her hair smelled of sandalwood—soap she had used recently, mingling with her own human smell. He felt her sigh, though whether it was in exhaustion or frustration he wasn't sure. "I'll keep that in mind," he promised. He could have instead promised he wouldn't think of it at all, as he found it easier to lie when he wasn't looking at her, but he had a feeling she would have caught an outright lie.

"You had better. I may just ask Allie how to keep in touch with your mind, as she does with Kal's." The tone of her voice had lightened up, meaning that the subject was dropped, much to his relief. They had had to deal with too much death to get to the point where they were. For the moment, Gabriel was content to focus on the near future.

"Shall we join to others for our move then, angel?" he said, straightening up. "I think there are only so many glass-related subjects for them to pretend to talk about."

**

* * *

**

Herbert shook back his shirtsleeves from his wrists theatrically. "Now, _mesdames et messieurs_—you can see that there is nothing up my sleeves."

The others, crowded into the tiny mirrored room, nodded gamely and did the best to hide their impatience. Their suitcases lay in a pile, all of the contents inside wrapped in waterproof oilcloth. Rose had taken her customary position on Gabriel's shoulder, her tail twitching irritably. Herbert had taken the time to explain to her that she was going to end up underwater once they got to the other side; the news had not pleased her.

"Oh, excuse me—with the exception of this, of course." With a flourish, Herbert ran one hand down the length of the opposite forearm, passing one palm over the other when the hands met. Smiling broadly, he opened both hands to reveal a completely unremarkable grease pencil that had a gnawed-upon look. Polite applause from Allie made him positively beam.

"Well, what are you going to do with it?" Ella called down. She and her sister knelt at the opening of the trapdoor. The room was too crowded for them to stand in without being in direct contact with Gabriel, which they wanted to avoid (the faeries, as a rule, were forbidden to come into contact with magickally-created daemons).

"Carpentry," he responded without a moment's pause. "After all, one can't walk through a wall, can he? First, you have to mark out where the doorframe would _be_." He turned on his heel and ran a hand over the shattered surface of the wall. Instead of drawing blood, the mirrors knit themselves together neatly. Once there was an unbroken area of roughly his own height, Herbert sketched out a rough rectangle with the grease pencil. "Now that we have a door_frame_, we'll need to mark out the area for the door _itself._" Working quickly, he began sketching a series of odd symbols from the top of the rectangle to where it met the floor.

"Do you recognize any of that?" Gabriel whispered to Allie, who shook her head in surprise.

"No, it all looks like random marking to me. Kal?"

"It looks like a giant fly ran through ink and walked all over the wall." As an afterthought, he added "or a very dull child trying to write."

Herbert stood back from his work, his mood not dampened in the slightest. "My handwriting's much worse than this, I promise. Now that we've got ourselves a nice door, we'll need a key or two. Who would like to go first?"

Gabriel and Kal exchanged glances. "Well," said Gabriel after a moment passed, "you _are _the invincible one."

Kal stepped forward, Allie dragging her suitcases behind. "So you want me to walk into a wall," he said bluntly.

"Technically speaking, yes." Herbert pointed to a lopsided square in the center of the door, surrounded by a few spiky, indecipherable symbols. "Put your hand right there when you do, and it should open with no problem." Raising his voice, he called out to the two sitting at the edge of the trapdoor. "You two can go with them!"

Ella and 'Rey jumped down into the space cleared by Gabriel and Elizabeth. A few steps brought them across the tiny room. "What do we do?" Freya asked.

"One of you take hold of Allie's hand." Herbert took notice a second later that both her hands were full, holding onto the handles of her suitcases. "Or her arms, that would work too. Kal, you hold onto her as well." He waited until a chain was made: Kal's arm around Allie's waist, Freya's hand around Allie's upper arm, and Ella holding Freya's hand. "Now, whatever you do, don't let go—you don't want to get lost between worlds. It's not very enjoyable." As they simultaneously clenched their hands, Herbert gave Kal a small wave. "Good luck—and hold your breath!"

Gabriel and Elizabeth watched as Kal pressed on the asymmetrical square, expecting the mirror to swing open. Instead, his hand disappeared smoothly into the glassy surface. Kal frowned and shot Herbert a glance.

Herbert nodded reassuringly. "The door's open—go on, then."

He tightened his free arm around Allie and walked forward without another word. The glass closed around the rest of his arm, his shoulder, his leg…soon he had completely disappeared through the wall without the glass so much as rippling. Allie, after audibly gulping a lungful of air, followed immediately after; once Ella had passed through, there wasn't a sign that they had been there at all. The markings on the wall were undisturbed, the mirror was undistorted.

Herbert turned to Elizabeth and Gabriel and smiled, apparently unfazed. "I will follow behind you two," he said as they tentatively approached the rectangle. Elizabeth carried their suitcases; only three. Gabriel had jokingly suggested bringing along the piano, if only it would fit through the trapdoor. Looking at Elizabeth's full hands, he held out his own. "I can take Rose."

After a moment's hesitation, Gabriel knelt down. Rose kneaded his shoulder with her paws, and leapt impressively into Herbert's arms. "I'll not lose her," Herbert assured him, cradling Rose in his arms. Her head twisted around and buried itself in the crook of his elbow, drawing a chuckle from him. "Not to worry, my dear, you won't have to get wet since you're travelling with me." Directing his attention to the remaining two, her bowed and gestured to the door with a swoop of his arm. "Ready?"

Gabriel picked up Elizabeth with his left arm, keeping his right free. As she struggled to maneuver the suitcases without dropping them (they contained fairly heavy books), Herbert stepped forward and took two from her hand. "I'd best take these as well."

"Thank you, but with all your hands full, how will you hold on?" she asked.

"I won't be using the door," Herbert said in a tone that implied it was perfectly obvious. "Probably a better idea; this way, Rose won't have to worry about a bath."

Gabriel rested his hand lightly against the mirror, taking in his and Elizabeth's reflection under all of Herbert's symbols. "What will happen?"

"Can't say," he replied lightly. "I've never used one. I'm sure it's nothing to get anxious about, though. It will get you across, I know that much."

"Very reassuring," Elizabeth said with a forced laugh. She wrapped the arm not holding onto the suitcase around Gabriel's neck. "Don't drop me, now."

"Never," he replied. He held his breath, and, feeling Elizabeth do the same, pressed forward through the wall.

**

* * *

**

It was a sensation that reminded him of when his curse had been made permanent; the ghostly feeling of needles lightly pressing against his skin, not quite hard enough to hurt. There was no light; he couldn't even see his own outstretched hand. He could feel Elizabeth's warmth and her heartbeat, but it was as though he had gone deaf as well as blind. He walked forward cautiously, and could feel himself moving, but there was no way to tell if he was. All of his limbs felt heavy and useless; from the way Elizabeth's arm loosened around his neck, he guessed she felt the same. Whether his arm obeyed as he tried to tighten his hold on her he didn't know, because all at once he felt numb.

He forced himself to take another step, and the world turned itself over, flipping him onto his back and driving Elizabeth's head into his jaw. He winced and drew in a lungful of air, only to flood his mouth with water. Within a few heartbeats, he registered that he could hear—dimly—and see watery, abstract shapes.

_Get up,_ he told himself, and with his head spinning, forced himself to sit up.

**

* * *

**

Elizabeth let out the breath she had been holding, dropping the suitcase to wipe the water streaming down her face out of her eyes. Her clothes and hair were sodden, and her head felt like a spinning top. She tried to shake off the feeling from crossing through the door, focusing on where they were. The water was up to her waist; a stone wall, a little higher, encircled them. They sat in the near-center.

Gabriel sputtered and coughed out the water he had tried to breathe. His fur was matted, and his soaked hair had gotten into his face. He impatiently pushed it out of the way and looked down at her. "Are you alright?" he managed to say after turning his head to spit out a mouthful of water.

"Just a little dizzy." She slid off of his lap and got to her feet unsteadily, having to work at keeping her balance because the ground was unusually slippery. After a moment of squinting through the murky water, she could see that they were on a large mirror. "You?"

"A little sore. I think I fell on my tail." Wincing, he pushed himself up. "Are we…in a fountain?"

"You are," Allie called over. "Come on out, the fish get vicious after a minute." She waved to them from where she and the others stood, squeezing water out of their clothing and hair.

Elizabeth clamored over the edge of the fountain, feeling at little resentment as Gabriel stepped over the side with barely any effort. The stones were worn and covered with slimy moss that came off on her hands. It seemed to move as she stared at it, squirming to get off of her hands. When it actually wiggled to the edges of her palms and fell back onto the damp stones, there was no mistaking it. "Gabriel," she exclaimed. "That moss just _moved_!"

He laid a hand on her shoulder and gently turned her around. "Look at the courtyard, _carefully_. The roses."

She focused on the vast expanse that was the courtyard for the first time. It stretched on for yards in either direction, and carried up what she supposed were the walls. It was impossible to tell if any stone existed beneath the carpet of greenery that trailed to the ground: roses, vines and climbing plants she couldn't give a name to seemed to breath under the deep afternoon sunlight (the fact that it had been midnight when they left their world seemed not to matter). The stone pathway was nearly invisible under the waist-high grass, except for sections that had been trampled down. Everywhere, even growing up against the soot-colored castle, was some sort of plant life: gnarled, ancient looking trees, wildflowers, and innumerable weeds. The sound of running water indicated that there was a brook somewhere close by; the fountain itself was more of a pond of still water. Most remarkably were the roses that grew up the walls of the castle, clinging onto every surface and painting the walls deep red and green.

Except for the extent of the overgrown plants, it was startlingly familiar; not a twin to their own home, but it was very close. Only…

"Are they _moving_? They aren't really, are they?" She stared at the gently swaying roses, the nodding blooms and rustling leaves. Now that she looked again, it seemed that even the branches of the trees—six that she could see—were moving slowly, almost intercept ably, back and forth. "But there's no wind!"

"Yes, they do tend to do that over here," said Herbert. Elizabeth started; she hadn't noticed him standing there; probably because, a second ago, he hadn't been. She though of asking how he had appeared out of thin air, and decided to leave it be. "You should remember that well. Roses, especially, are quite vicious. Over here, they're feared more than wolves or bears—you'd do well not to pluck any." Smiling, he set Rose down to explore.

The others joined them at the fountain, all preoccupied with looking around the grounds. Allie took the time to magickally dry all of their clothes, mumbling to herself about the inconveniences of colds.

"What do you think?" said Herbert, after giving them another moment. "A suitable home?"

Gabriel followed the path of a minuscule goldfinch with his eyes as it flew by, soon followed by a small flock. "More than suitable, I think. There will be no objections to our living here?"

Kal arched an eyebrow and waved his hand in an arc. "Does this place look like anyone caretakes it?"

Ella was subtly bouncing from one foot to the other, her eyes darting around from one sight to the other. "I want to go explore the place. 'Rey, will you come with me?" She took her hand and both disappeared before Freya could say a word either way.

Elizabeth noticed the distrustful look Allie was giving the castle as she sidled closer to Kal. "Is something the matter with it?"

Herbert quickly volunteered an answer. "Over here, magick tends to settle into places that have been abandoned for a while. This particular house has been abandoned for…mayhap a century or more. It's not dangerous, but I have friends getting rid of most of it."

"I don't trust it," Allie grumbled, giving it a very Kal-like glare. "Come on—let's get closer. I want to see how many layers of enchantments are sitting on it."

Herbert watched them navigate their way through the grass, his good humor still remaining. In the sunlight, which somehow seemed deeper and more golden than their own, he seemed for an instant to be older than even the trees on the grounds. It was the way the light played around his eyes, Elizabeth decided, and as she stared, she thought she could see his body shift and the colours vibrate. Just as she realized she was looking at his own magick, he turned around abruptly and saluted them. "Now, I think it's time I check in on my friends—just to be safe. Sometimes these old castles just swallow people up. Why don't you walk around for a while? I think they trampled down a half-fair path."

They waved and turned away down the path he mentioned, which was barely more than a few feet wide. They walked until they came upon a stable-looking fallen log to sit on, after checking that there were no aggressive-looking plants to accidentally sit on.

For a moment, they just sat and stared at their new home, familiar but differing in some ways: for one, there were more curves worked into the castle, a change from the sharp angles and harsh towers back at home.

"I think the courtyard will work quite nicely, once it's been cleaned up a bit," Elizabeth said once some minutes had gone by.

"Work for what?" Gabriel replied a little too quickly. He had been dozing off, she realized, and she had just startled him awake. She herself felt like dozing off. In her head, it was midnight, even with the warm sun on her face.

"Our wedding—if you still want to go through with it, of course," she chided. "It has been a while, after all, and you've been running around the countryside, gotten some light amnesia…"

"Well, if _you_ want to go through with it," he sighed, feigning reluctance, "then I suppose I'll have to bear it. I would sever my own right hand if you asked me to, after all."

Elizabeth laughed and found his hand with her own. "We'll see about the hand…for now, let's agree on one thing."

"And that would be…?"

"From now on, we stay together." She reached up and, taking hold of one of his horns, tugged his face down to eye-level. "No more running off on noble quests or any such nonsense. You're going to have to be stuck with me from now on."

"I guess I'll just have to bear it." Laughing, Gabriel kissed her and, standing up, swung her to her feet. "Shall we see if our new home has a library, my angel?"

"We'd better—if not, we're going back through the mirror."

Hand in hand, they made their way through the neglected field under a new sky.


	24. Chapter 24

There was not, on that day, a speck to stain

The azure heaven; the blessed sun alone,

In unapproachable divinity,

Career'd, rejoicing in his field of light.

--Robert Southley

* * *

_**Several Months Later**_

The rain, having turned the hard-packed dirt road leading to the farmhouse to a muddy swamp, had stopped for the moment. Henri took off his wide brimmed hat, shook the water off of it, and crammed it down back around his ears. The sun, up for over seven hours now, showed itself for the first time. Its light was pale and thin, still more wintery light than the clean spring sunshine that was to come in the later weeks.

The mud sucked at his boots, threatening to pull them clean off his feet as he trudged from the barn to the house. He was expecting company in only a few hours, and had a mind to tidy up the house first. Leaving his muddy boots on the back stoop, he got out the straw broom and did his best to sweep the dirty floors clean. It was the hardest to keep the house clean in the spring, when there was too much to do during the day and the dirt seemed to stick to every stitch of his clothing.

An hour later, the house had been swept, the kitchen tidied, and the shutters opened to let in the light breeze. There was still stew left over from last night's supper in a pot on the stove, so there was no need to cook. He hadn't expected to be finished this early. Henri padded across the kitchen floor and went out the door. He may as well wait sitting on the front stoop; at least he would be able to see them coming.

A half-hour passed, and then another quarter. His legs had begun to stiffen by the time he could see a moving blotch at the end of the muddy path; it was a good while before the blotch focused into two people riding a horse. He recognized his daughter and her mare soon after and got to his feet waving. She and the person sitting behind her returned the gesture, and slowed to a stop in front of the house.

Elizabeth dismounted neatly and ran up the front steps. "I've missed you!" she exclaimed, and nearly knocked the wind out of him in her half-embrace, half-tackle.

"It's wonderful to see you well, dear," Henri wheezed, "but I think you might break this old back before long." He held her out at arm's length, feeling the first genuine laugh he'd had in a while escape from his stomach. "Oh, dear girl, whatever are you wearing?" he managed to say as he took in his daughter's clothes. Her dress was made of some soft green material that looked like a mix between cotton and wool. The whole thing was loose-fitting and draped over her body, tied at the waist by a broad sash. The neck was round, falling just below her collarbone, and most startling of, all, it was completely sleeveless.

She smiled sheepishly and tugged at a handful of the skirt. "It's a common style over there. It's more of a work-outfit, but I think it's a bit to light for the weather over here. It was much warmer when we left."

The other person, having left briefly to stable the horse, returned and handed her a shawl made of a similar material. "I knew we should have brought warmer clothing." He mounted the steps and offered his hand to Henri. "A pleasure to see you again, Monsieur."

Henri smiled confusedly and took the offered hand, taking in the stranger's appearance. He stood a little taller than Henri himself, his shoulder about level with the top of Elizabeth's head. A loose black shirt and pants just short of fitting properly hung off of his thin, lanky body. His face was likewise thin, with angular cheekbones and a high forehead. The brown, down slanting eyes and eyebrows gave him a calm, slightly sad appearance that was at odds with his broad grin.

Henri dropped the callused, long-fingered hand and tried to hide his puzzlement. "Have we met?" he said hesitantly.

Both the stranger and Elizabeth exchanged a look and a smile. "Father," Elizabeth said, beaming, "I would like to introduce you to my husband: Gabriel."

Henri blanched. "I…how did…but you--"

Gabriel chuckled and reached gestured to the door with a wave of his hand. "Perhaps we should sit down."

**

* * *

  
**

Henri listened to his daughter's excited description of their new home as coherently as he could. All the talk of separate worlds and magick was, truthfully, a little too odd for him to take in. All the while, he kept glancing at the man that had previously been an eight-foot tall daemon-creature. Gabriel sat silently throughout the conversation, seemingly content to listen to Elizabeth talk. His hand remained rested on hers, and looked away from her face only occasionally. It was incredible, he thought to himself, that his bookish, day-dreaming daughter could have so much power over such a strange man. Over his heart, his words, his actions, and even his appearance.

"You wouldn't believe the amount of strange animals we've seen!" Elizabeth said excitedly. "Birds with human faces, fish with wings, cats that look like lizards…and for every three humans we've met, there seems to be an immortal of some sort! All sorts of faeries and daemons…we have a few elves, actually, helping around the house. There's so much we still have to do. The garden's the most difficult, it keep attacking us whenever we try to weed it, but Allie's taught me a nice guard-charm to keep the thorns from cutting us to ribbons. Kal and Allie are quite happy with that world, despite all of the strangeness. I think they've only been met with three assassination attempts, which is a nice change of pace—they're considering settling down near an ocean. Our new friend, Herbert, is working on finding them a safe place."

"It sounds a little dangerous," Henri remarked. "Is it safe at _all_?"

Elizabeth seemed surprised at the question, and shrugged it off. "It's about as dangerous as it is here. We just haven't gotten used to it yet."

Henri shook his head. "You were always headstrong, my dear. I just hope you don't run into too much trouble over in this strange home of yours. You'll be keeping her safe, I trust," he said to Gabriel.

Gabriel raised a hand as if swearing an oath. "Always. We will come to visit often, of course. We will want Vincent--"

"Or Valerie," Elizabeth interjected quickly.

"—yes, or Valerie, to be familiar with both worlds."

Henri looked from Elizabeth to Gabriel, waiting for the words to sink in. When they did, his felt as though his heart had jumped up into his throat. "You mean to say…"

He had thought it impossible for Gabriel's smile to grow any brighter as he laid one hand gently on Elizabeth's stomach. "Yes…we are to have a child."

* * *

_Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful girl and a not-so-beautiful man. While they were faced with many difficulties and hardships, their love managed to grow, and it was this love that conquered even the most impossible of situations._

_It held them together until the end of their days, and they lived out the rest of their lives happily ever after._

_

* * *

_

A/n: Well, there you have it. I thank you all for reading, and hope that it was finished decently. I won't be doing any more writing on this site, I don't think, but feel welcome to read anything I may post on my deivantArt.

Much thanks to you all.

-K.


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